Sharpest Tooth
by Saiyaness28
Summary: Little Red Riding Hood. Eli is a Turnskin, a werewolf that hunts and abducts young women. He attempts his first solo hunt and finds that his target is definitely not a helpless little girl. He falls in love and must make a choice. Betray her or the pack?
1. Chapter 1

Sharpest Tooth

**Little girls, this seems to say,**

**Never stop upon your way,**

**Never trust a stranger-friend;**

**No one knows how it will end.**

**As you're pretty so be wise;**

**Wolves may lurk in every guise.**

**Handsome they may be, and kind,**

**Gay, and charming- never mind!**

**Now, as then, 'tis simple truth-**

**Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!**

**-Charles Perrault**

* * *

><p><span>Chapter One<span>

My throat was dry, painfully dry, when I awoke the morning of my eighteenth birthday. I sat up with a groan. My muscles were aching, it felt like I'd pinched a nerve in my back, my gums were sore, swollen, and the metallic taste in my mouth told me that they were bleeding. I mumbled a curse and wiped the cold sweat from my forehead. Yeah, I'd definitely transformed a bit during the night, not fully though. My clothes were still in tact. My blanket though bore several rips and holes. This happened occasionally, especially when I had nightmares.

A fist pounded at the door. "Get up! We're leaving in ten minutes!" My dad half growled.

"I'm up!" I yelled back through the door and threw the blanket off my legs. With quivering limbs I quickly dressed. There was no point to a shower this morning, not with today's to do list. I pulled on some loose jeans and left on the undershirt I'd slept in. I started to grab some sandals, but remembered it would be pointless. As I threw them back into the closet of no return, I noticed the picture sitting, half buried in a pile of clean laundry, on my dresser. A beautiful girl with moss green eyes and a bruised face smiled back at me, a moss eyed toddler hugged tightly in her arms. With shaking hands I lifted it from the dresser. I looked at it, studying it, trying to remember when I'd touched it last. Months maybe? The woman's familiar eyes glared back at me, accusing me, even while a seemingly happy smile stretched her lips. She looked like such a proud, happy mom, but the purple and blue colors marring her cheek was a testament to what was really going on at home. I grit my teeth at it, knowing she wouldn't be proud of what the little boy in her arms had grown up to be, a monster…just like his father. _I can't help it, mom. I can't fight nature. I can't be something that I'm not. You knew what I was when you gave birth to me. You knew what the human skin hides. _"Don't look at me like that." I whispered bitterly.

The door opened and I quickly tossed the picture frame onto the clothes pile. My dad, a large, powerful man with thick chestnut hair and two weeks worth of beard loomed in the doorway. I watched his ice colored eyes shift from the frame to me. He stiffened slightly, but chose to ignore the chill that always seemed to grip him when he looked at the single photo of my mom. "Come on, Eli. The others are already waiting for us down at the park."

Knowing better by now not to question him, I quickly did as I was told. We went out of the cabin and climbed into his red pick up. It was an old model, covered in more rust than actual paint. The floorboards were covered in dried mud, cigarette cartons and beer cans. My dad's not really concerned about getting pulled over. Our entire family lived on a sort of compound in the higher elevations of the Smokey Mountain Range, out in the middle of forest, far away from the tourist traps. Not even cops came up there, and most of them weren't brave enough to call my dad on anything. He'd never been in trouble with the law, but he had the air of someone who wasn't to be messed with. All of us, Roans are like that. Sometimes I wonder if I'll be that way myself when I'm older…or after today.

My dad turned off the radio with his meaty fingers. The upbeat bluegrass music died away to silence. "Remember the rules. Catch and kill. This is a practice run. You won't be keeping this one." He said as he drained the rest of his morning beer.

"Will you or the others be helping me at all?" I asked, trying to ignore the horror I felt at the sense of anticipation that was welling up in me.

"That would defeat the purpose, wouldn't it. You're eighteen as of today. That means it's time for you step up and face what it means to be a Roan man, to be a Turnskin. Today you'll get your first solo kill and hone the hunting skills you'll need when it's time for you to take your first Red. You'll be on your own, this time around, Pup."

I suppressed the urge to sigh at my embarrassing nickname. I really hoped that he would stop calling me "Pup" once I'd made my first solo kill and became a full fledged man.

Dad threw his empty beer bottle into the back seat's floorboards and took a fresh cigarette from the pack he had stashed in the dashboard. "I saw you looking at Trish's picture." He said. His voice sounded calm, but his eagerness as he sucked on the cancer stick gave away the tension he was secretly feeling. "Something on your mind?" He asked, blowing out a billow of smoke.

"I…I'm just nervous, I guess…about taking a Red." I replied, half lying, half telling the truth. I wasn't nervous. I was excited and I was ashamed of that.

"Let me guess, you don't want to hurt anybody. Right?" He started to laugh, but it died mid throat.

I didn't answer. I didn't need to. My dad knew how I was.

"Look, this isn't exactly the life I would have planned for myself either, but it can't be helped. We're not human, Eli. We're Turnskins. We don't get to play nice. We don't get happily ever afters. Reading enough of those Grimm tales should tell you that much. We're more wolf than man, and as such we have to live like wolves. We can't forget what we are. The bloodlust won't allow it." He took another long drag of his cigarette. "No matter how hard you try to tame it, the wolf's always there in the back of your mind, snapping at the bars of his cage. He will get out. It's just a matter of time." His eyes cut across at me. He'd driven this dirt road so many times, the truck seemed to know what to do without him having to watch the road. "I should know."

"Dad…why did you keep mom for so long?" That question was always on my mind. Today seemed like the best day to ask it. "Turnskins don't usually keep Reds for longer than necessary, but you kept mom around for five years. Why?"

He let out a long sigh. I could almost hear a wolf's whine beneath it. "Not today, Eli. You need to focus on your hunt." He said, once again avoiding any topic that was connected to my mom. We pulled into the gravel parking lot for the Great Smokey Mountains National Park and swung into a space beside my half-brothers' jeep and my uncle's SUV. Boaz and Trevor talked amongst themselves as my uncle Carl and his son, Wyatt pretended to be reading a brochure.

"You ready to become a man, lil' Pup?" Boaz snickered as my dad and I got out of the truck, his voice thick with a southern drawl.

"Looks like it." Trevor laughed, gesturing towards my feet. "Boy don't even have shoes on. You think that you're gonna be spending all your time in wolf form?"

"Jesus, Pup. How are you gonna lure a girl, looking like a bum." Boaz chuckled, rich and deep. I noticed a couple of teen girls glance his way, lured to him by the sexy sound of his voice.

"Dad, couldn't you have taught the boy how to dress?" Asked Trevor, leaning nonchalantly against my shoulder and ruffling my brown hair.

"Sorry. Wasn't paying attention." He said absently, watching as a twenty something girl sashayed by, arm in arm with her boyfriend. Her hair was blond, like my mom's.

"Stop giving him a hard time, boys." Carl scolded his two eldest nephews, discreetly grabbing them by the back of the neck and shoving them slightly. "You aught to remember your blooding. You had no sense between the two of you."

"Yes, sir." Trevor and Boaz replied in unison, neither brave enough to second guess the older male. My dad was the biggest out of the two patriarchs, but it was Carl who was leader of our pack. He was the most experienced and most successful hunter. With his thick black hair, fine features, and ocher eyes, he was more adept at tempting the Reds, young human girls. My dad was not so alluring, and therefore had to rely on his brute strength. In a pack of Turnskins, it was sex appeal that mattered, not physical strength. It was true that the alpha only had one son, but he'd taken more girls than he could count.

"Wyatt, get Eli my spare hiking boots out of the trunk." Carl ordered his son. The boy eagerly bounded to the back of their Expedition and retrieved the weathered boots for me. I could tell by the brightness of his eyes and the flush of his cheeks that he was excited to be allowed to take part in this ritual, even if he wasn't going to be hunting himself. He liked it when the others included him as an equal member and not just a pup. Hell, I'm sure that I would have acted the same way, if I wasn't able to remember my mom like him and my brothers. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

Wyatt was only twelve then, but he had a lot of potential to be a good hunter like his dad. He was gifted in the looks department, a little mirror image of his dad, except that one of his eyes was blue. He was a nice kid…but I knew that the wolf was already stirring in him. We were seeing glimpses of it in him more and more with every group hunt. Eventually, probably by his next birthday, he'd be able to fully shed the human skin. And just six years from now, he'd kill a girl all by himself.

I strapped on the old boots. They were a size or two too big, but they'd do until I was ready to transform. Once I was somewhat presentable, the whole pack headed into the greeting center. It was a good sized building, made to look like a cabin. Inside, the walls were lined with wooden paneling. There was some furniture built of carved logs and shelves upon shelves laden down with cheaply made, yet highly priced, nick knacks and other junk that tourists can't seem to resist, like Indian head dresses and dream catchers, bags of brightly colored rocks. It was late autumn. Most of the leaf watchers had gone home since most of the leaves had become an unappealing shade of dead. There was still quite a few tourists trolling about the welcome center, browsing through the souvenirs. Parents were scouring the brochure rack, looking for a cheap activity they could bribe their kids into participating in for some good old family bonding. The younger kids screamed and ran through the isles of shelves, chasing each other with plastic tomahawks, while the teens listened to music on their iPods and typed away at their phones.

"Ain't she ripe for the picking?" Boaz sneered under his breath, his blue eyes locked on a particularly well endowed teenager.

"There's quite a few ripe ones in town today." Trevor agreed with his twin, as he scanned the room, noting each and every Red in sight.

"Heel, boys." Dad grumbled in a whisper. "This is Eli's blooding, remember?"

The twins sighed in exasperation, but offered up brotherly advice. "See one you like, baby brother?" Asked Trevor.

"I particularly have a taste for the busty ones." Boaz breathed in my ear. I watched him out the corner of my eye. Boaz was smiling, his teeth already beginning to grow sharper and longer.

I looked around the room, from face to face, from victim to victim. Each girl went about their lives, unaware that a group of wolves were in their midst, sizing them up, looking for potential prey. Who's life was I about to destroy?

A blur of color coming through the door, caught my attention. Red. Beautiful, vibrant, crimson red, the color of a candied apple. My eyes had automatically zeroed in on the color alone, bathing my field of vision in red. I blinked my eyes, forcing them to focus on the form wearing it. It was a young girl, probably in her mid to late teens. She was wearing a red jacket. Long black hair spilled around her shoulders. It looked like it was probably died that color. Near the crown of her head, I could see a faint change. Her roots were a slightly reddish hue.

"God have mercy on me." Boaz groaned at my ear. "Little Red Riding Hood's come to town." He grinned lopsidedly, flashing me wolf teeth. "If you don't want her, I call dibs."

Trevor wined quietly and bit his thumb to keep from hurling cat calls at the girl.

I couldn't blame my brothers from getting excited. There's something about the color red that makes us go crazy. Even the elder males were shifting restlessly behind me, resisting the urge to transform and gobble her up. I suppose it's because it's the color of blood and sex. Both are what makes Turnskins tick. Either way, it urges us on, attracts us, makes it impossible to ignore the Reds who dare wear the Big Bad Wolf's favorite color.

I could feel the attraction as well. My heart was pounding, my muscles tightening with anticipation, ready and eager to transform, to chase her, to taste her blood.

My brain was screaming at me. I knew it was wrong. I remembered. Unlike the others, I remember my mom, what was done to her, how she died. I remembered her fear, the despair that she felt, being the captive bride of a monster. I didn't want to become the thing that destroyed my mother, but I couldn't fight it. I was my father's son. I was a Turnskin. My body, the wolf inside of me, was focused on the Red. It was screaming even louder than my conscious. Lure. Hunt. Kill. Devour.

Animals can't resist what they are bred to do. It's in our nature.

"She's mine." I breathed, only half lucid. The red jacket was calling me towards it's defenseless wearer. The wolf was licking his chops within his mental cage. He could practically taste the girl's flesh already.

I slapped on a charming smile and walked up beside the Red as she was admiring dream catchers. "Hi." I greeted her, trying to sound nice, and not in the least like a creepy stalker. I found it difficult to keep the wolf's gravely growl out of my voice, being so close to this girl dressed in Turnskin-nip.

"Hi." She greeted half-heartedly, with a suspicious look on her face. She had delicate facial features with a slender nose and lips that were slightly fuller on the top. She had pretty mint green eyes, that made me pause my breathing when they fell on my skin. "Can I help you?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

"S-sorry, I don't usually do this kind of thing." I laughed shyly and rubbed at the back of my neck. "I-I like your jacket." I blurted, pointing at the garment.

"Thanks…I guess." She smiled, but rolled her eyes as she turned away, like she thought I was crazy. She started to walk back towards the door, but I stepped up the pace so I could catch up to her. "Wait, are you from out of town?" I asked.

"No." She shook her head. "I just moved into the area, thought I'd look around a bit. I heard it's a big tourist destination."

"Would you like a tour guide?" I asked. "I hike up here all the time. I could show you the best views, tell you where you can get some decent grub, protect you from…bears?" I suggested, grabbing at straws. I could hear the twins trying their hardest to stifle laughs and failing miserably.

She smirked at me, her eyes considering every feature she could see. "I don't really need protection. I can take care of myself. Thanks though."

"Look…I live out here in the middle of nowhere. I don't get to meet cute girls very often." I try a final time to lure her into the snare. I could see that she was still resistant, so I motioned towards the pack who were trying to hide in the back of the store. "Come on, it'll save me from having to hike all day with that lot. Be merciful." I smiled brightly, hoping that my teeth hadn't sharpened.

She paused as she considered her options. Finally she relented. "Fine." She sighed. "But I can't be gone long. My grandma will kill me if I'm out after dark."

"I'll have you back here safe and sound well before that." I promised her. "Wait right her while I tell my family where I'm going."

"Sure." She said and preoccupied herself with the shiny painted rocks.

I jogged back to the pack. The twins gave me two thumbs up.

"Keep her engaged with small talk. Don't transform too soon. Lead her off the main path. Make sure that you're alone and are far away from other hikers. You don't want anyone coming to her rescue." Said Carl.

"Got it." I nodded with a big grin, feeling proud of my manipulation skills.

"When you chase her, coral her away from the hiking paths. Push her deeper into the woods. You'll have the advantage there." Said Dad.

"Okay." I sigh, much too eager to get the hunt underway. The red was messing with my head, making it very hard to think about anything else but the girl.

"Be careful." My dad added. " Reds might be weaker, but when you're crazed by the hunt, they're smarter. We win more often than not, but there are exceptions."

"Alright dad, I've got it. Don't worry." I huffed and rushed back over to the girl. I really should have listened to my dad's warning a little more closely, but the wolf is an impatient fellow. Once he sets his eyes on something he wants to eat, he's impossible to stop.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Aren't you cold?"

I blinked out of the muddle my brain was under and focused on the girl that had spoken. All I could think about was the damned red she was wearing and the intoxicating scent of her cherry blossom perfume. My prey glanced at the thin shirt I was wearing. The day was cool and windy. "I'm fine." I said with a smile. "I'm hot natured."

"Okay. Just making sure." She shrugged absently. "I'd offer you my jacket, but I don't think it would fit." Her minty green eyes fluttered up and down my six foot, three inch frame.

"I'd look pretty silly in that tiny thing." I chuckled.

The girl smiled, despite the reservations she still had about me. "What's your name?" She finally asked.

"Eli." I replied.

"Eli." She repeated. "I'm Dinah."

"Dinah? There's a name you don't hear very often." I laughed. Immediately the childhood song, "Who's in the Kitchen with Dinah?" started rolling through my brain.

"Ugh. I hate it!" She groaned. "If I hear that stupid kids' song one more time I swear I'm going to loose my mind."

"Yeah, well, names are like families. You can't pick them. You have to live with the hand you're dealt."

"Those guys that were with you. Are they your family?" She asked, her interest seemingly aroused.

"Unfortunately." I sighed. "The big guy was my dad. The smaller man was my uncle, Carl and the others were my half brothers Trevor and Boaz."

"What about the kid?" She asked. "The one with the different colored eyes?"

"That's Wyatt. He's Carl's son. The eye thing is a hereditary trait. It's common in my family."

"I like it. It makes him different. I think it's good for a kid to stand out a bit."

"I don't think Wyatt would agree with you. He'd do anything to fit in. He's only twelve and he's already begging my brothers to let him drive their jeep and teach him how to shoot so he can go hunting with them." I lied. We don't use guns to do our hunting. Teeth and claws are all that's required.

"They should teach him. I know how to shoot. My mom started giving me lessons as soon as I was strong enough to handle the recoil."

"Really?" I asked, disbelieving.

"Yep." She chirped. "She said I should know how to defend myself."

Shit. Out of all the girls at the welcome center, I had to choose the one who may be armed. I wouldn't have made such a mistake if she hadn't been wearing that maddening red jacket! I discreetly scanned her body, looking for anywhere she could conceal a pistol. I saw no obvious signs that she was concealing a weapon.

Catching me staring at her, she smiled at me and shyly brushed her black and red hair away from her face. Her scent got stronger. I suppressed the urge to grab her hair up by the root and rip into her slender throat with my canine teeth. I could feel the ache in my mouth as the teeth grew longer and shifted around.

I could feel the wolf inside churning. He bit at the bars of my mental cage, his powerful jaws bending the bars. Any moment now, he'd be free. I looked around at where we were hiking. I had just started to lead her off the main path. I was still too close to it. I could see glimpses of it through the veil of trees around us. Just a little further, a little further and no one would be able to reach her in time. "Let's go this way." I suggested. I pointed down a barely there trail, mostly overgrown with bushes and weeds. "I found this great little brook that most people don't know is there." I carefully made my way down an embankment, sliding most of the way. She hesitated at first, but decided against her better judgment. She followed me away from the safety of the main hiker's path, deeper into the forest. My forest. Human women are so trusting and naïve. They'll follow you like a lamb to the slaughter if you smile nicely at them and tell them how pretty they are. That's what Carl says anyway.

As I led her to her death, we continued to make small talk. I needed to keep her interest, keep her focused on me and not the rustling of leaves and the quiet panting of my kin, who were watching my progress from the protection of the woods. "So you came to live with your grandma? Can I ask why you'd come from L.A. to the middle of no where?" I asked, trying to hide the twins' faint laughter coming from the woods. The sound was raspy, nearly barks.

She paused briefly. Her eyes shifted rapidly as she weighed her options. Should she tell me or not? "My mom…hasn't been well lately" She sighed and kicked at a rock with her boot. "She's always been a bit…unstable. She's a lot better when she takes her meds, but that became less and less often. She was finally hospitalized last month. " She looked to me for any sign of discomfort at this, as if I'd reel away from her in disgust when I found out that her mother had mental issues. I was a wolf, masquerading in human skin. Who was I to judge? She went on. "My dad's really stressed out over the situation, so I thought it would make it a little easier on him, if I took a little time off before college to visit my grandma."

"That was really thoughtful of you, to put everything on hold to give your dad some relief." I said, trying to show some support. "What were you planning on going to college for?"

Her cheeks reddened slightly. "Culinary Arts." She said. "I love to bake. I've always wanted to open some kind of bakery." Her blush worsened and my mouth began to water. "That's the dream any way." She laughed shyly.

"That's really cool, Dinah." I gushed. "You should definitely pursue it."

"I don't' know." She sighed. "The tuition for the school I'd like to go to is really expensive. I don't think we can afford it, what with my mom's medical issues and all."

"If you really love it, then I'm sure that your dad will support you and help you get where you need to be. If you don't at least try, you'll regret it. Not everyone has the option of going to college."

She frowned and gave me an apologetic look. "Speaking from experience?" She asked.

"I've never even set foot in a classroom." I confessed.

She stalled where she was and gawked at me. "Seriously? Were you home schooled or something?"

"Not really. My dad taught me what I absolutely needed to learn, like how to read and my multiplication tables. Other than that, nothing. My family lives off the grid. We hunt and butcher our own meat." _Mostly human_, I thought to myself. The wolf laughed like that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. "We grow what vegetables we need. We don't even have in-door plumbing." I laughed. I'm sure it sounded ridiculous to a city girl like her.

"I have no idea how you live like that." She shook her head. "I don't think I could."

"It's easy when it's all you've ever known." I replied. The wind blew a fresh whiff of her perfume into my face. My stomach growled and my nails grew a little longer. I stuffed them in my pockets to hide it. "Anyway, it's sort of a family rule that no one can move away or anything. We all live on the same piece of land. A few have broke away from the main family over the years, but we've mostly stayed in tact."

"You could leave if you really wanted to. I'm sure your dad would let you if it would make you happier." She assured me.

"You don't know my dad or Carl for that matter. They're as stubborn as the day is long. They'd kill me if I ever tried to leave." I wasn't being sarcastic about that either. If any of us even gives them reason to think that we want to leave, they'll rip us to shreds. "Besides, I don't have a lot of options out there. Who would hire a guy with a second grade level education?"

"I guess you have a point." She relented. "Still, you shouldn't let your dad and your uncle control you so much."

"Easier said than done." I breathed to myself.

My eyes scanned the forest around us. Through the trees, I saw glimpses of grey, brown and black fur and bright blue and yellow eyes. The pack was watching me closely, eager to see what I could do, to judge me on my strength and the skill with which I would kill Dinah. No more waiting.

"Where is this brook of yours?" She asked. "We've been walking for forever." She stopped and sighed heavily. "I think we should turn back. It's starting to get late." She said as she turned towards me. As her eyes fell on me, they doubled in size. " Eli?" She squeaked.

"What's wrong, Dinah?" I asked, trying my best to keep from groaning as the bones in my legs shifted, popping in and out of place.

"What's wrong with you eyes? They look…different." Her breathing raggedly, filled with fear. She started to step away from me.

"All the better to see you with, my dear." I said, with a smirk.

"And your teeth!" She gasped. "My god, they're so sharp!" She stumbled backwards and fell into a large tree.

"All the better to eat you with!" I growled, as my jaw popped and the bones in my face broke, shifted, and repaired itself into the shape of a wolf's muzzle.

Midway, through full transformation, I broke into a dead run after the girl. She cried and screamed as she ran for her life. She was faster than I would have guessed. As she ran, she would sometimes look back at me, to see how close I was. I nipped at her heels, not ready to end the fun little game just yet. I relished in the fear in her eyes, loving every ounce of it. Yet, the human part of me wondered if my mother had looked this scared when my dad was running after her, or if she was just as accepting of her fate then as I remembered.

I followed Dinah at a hair's breath away from her tender throat. My body twisted as I went, the human skin pealing away and disintegrating to ashes behind me. Eventually, I was left in my true form, an enormous brown wolf with bright moss green eyes that glowed with animalistic lust even in sunlight.

Wolf me was eager. Drool dripped from my anticipating mouth. My hooked nails reached out to dig into her waist, to pull her down to the ground so that I could break her neck in my jaws. Suddenly, she darted quickly to the right, her boots sliding in the underbrush. She ran for a few more feet, before stopping and turning towards me.

"Giving up?" I asked, my voice gravely and dripping with deadly intention. I chuckled at her foolishness. "It's your own fault, you know." I licked my chops as my eyes scanned the red jacket, now covered in mud and dirt. "You really shouldn't wear red. It attracts the Big Bad Wolf's attention." I laughed as I strode confidently towards her, knowing that within moments I'd have my very first solo kill.

Dinah smirked devilishly as she brandished a pistol from behind her back. "That was the idea." She said victoriously. She pointed the pistol at me and simultaneously shot off a round. I jumped to the side at the last second, an action that probably saved my life. Instead of hitting her intentional target, my heart, the bullet lodged itself in my shoulder.

I let out a yelp at the fiery pain that shot through me. I landed on my side on the forest floor. I whined and yelped, hoping that the others would hear me. I tried to right myself, but my body wouldn't have it. I couldn't get to my feet, could barely move. I watched helplessly as Dinah walked towards me.

"Funny thing about the Big Bad Wolf." She said. Her eyes, which I had thought to be so pretty, now looked as cold and vicious as mine. She put her boot on my neck to stop my squirming and pointed her gun down at my head. "He almost always dies at the end." I watched her finger tighten around the trigger. Tighter. Tighter. Tighter.

Before she could take the killing shot, the rest of my pack appeared. Boaz leapt in front of me, putting his body between mine and Dinah. "Back off you red hooded bitch!" He growled. "Before I give you a necklace to match that pretty coat!" He snarled, licking his lips as he eyed Dinah's throat.

The others walked calmly to take their place around me, guarding my vulnerable body. My Dad, a much larger version of myself, started to growl and snap his jaws at her. However, once he saw the blood pooling around me, he seemed to forget that she existed and tended to my wound. He whined and paced nervously and licked helplessly at the open wound. Trevor, the more submissive of the twins, lingered at the back of the pack, his ears back and his tail hanging low. His eyes shifted around from Dad, to Carl and finally to his more dominant twin. He was obviously scared of what the girl in front of them could do and he would rather have not come along. He was probably wishing he'd stayed wherever they'd left Wyatt. Carl was eerily sedate. No anger crossed his face. The elegant looking black wolf simply trotted up to where Boaz was crouched.

Dinah lifted up her gun, switching her aim from wolf to wolf, not knowing which to shoot first.

Carl snapped at Boaz, biting at the scruff around the grey wolf's head to correct him. "Calm down, fool!" He growled. "You're not helping!"

Boaz snapped back at him, unwilling to back down. He bore his teeth at the alpha. "No!" He growled. "We need to kill this bitch!"

He tried to lunge at Dinah, but Carl grabbed him by his scruff and threw him to the ground. "I am alpha, Boaz! I hope you haven't forgotten that!" He bore all his teeth at the younger wolf, showing that he was willing to kill him if he didn't remember his place in the hierarchy.

Instinctively, Boaz rolled onto his back in a submissive position, until Carl was satisfied that he had learned his lesson. Defeated, Boaz retreated to the back of the pack to be with the relieved Trevor.

"Forgive him. Boaz is young and impulsive." Carl said, still breathing a little heavily from having to reprimand Boaz. Carl was quite large, even by our standards. He stood eye to eye with Dinah. "I know that you don't have nearly enough bullets in that gun of yours to kill all of us here and now." His voice was calm, bet held a sharp edge that could cut straight through steel. "I'll give you this one chance to walk away. Leave us alone and let us tend to Eli's wound and there will be no more killing for twenty four hours. Refuse, and there will be a massacre like nothing this country has ever seen." He bore his teeth at her as he crouched down, ready to spring at her. "You better get running"

With an aggravated growl, Dinah turned and dashed away, quickly disappearing into the thick trees.

With her gone, Carl approached me. He sniffed at my wound. "We best get him home. This wound looks bad and he's lost a lot of blood."

My vision was beginning to dim around the edges. I could feel my energy leaving me, as if it were escaping through the hole in my shoulder.

"We should have killed the bitch." I heard Trevor growl.

"Don't worry, she's not going to get away with this." Boaz cackled. "I'll make sure of it."

"No, you won't." Carl growled at the identical grey wolves. "I promised twenty four hours of no hunting. I will keep that promise."

"Yeah, but those twenty four hours have to be up sometime, and when they are I'm going to drag her back here and show her just how bad we wolves can be." Boaz laughed a high pitched, ice cold laugh.

A chill passed through me. I knew his threat was anything but empty. When Boaz said he was going to do something, he always followed through on it. The pack would undoubtedly go after Dinah and God help her if Boaz found her first.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

I screamed long and loud as Carl dug a pair of pliers into the hole in my shoulder, searching for the bullet lodged deep inside. I flailed on the bed, the wolf snarling with my screams.

"Hold him down, damn it!" Carl hissed at my brothers. "I'm just going to make the wound worse if you can't keep him still."

"We're trying!" Trevor panted, sweat rolling down his forehead, his nails growing longer and dinging into the skin of my legs.

"Go grab some rope. We'll tie him down." Boaz ordered his twin, who followed the command without hesitation. I watched Boaz smirk down at me through blurry eyes. "Sorry little brother, but if you're gonna bitch and moan like a girl, we might as well treat you like one."

The stick they'd placed in my mouth for me to bite down on broke and splintered in my jaws. "Fuck you!" I growled at him, trying to rear off the bed to bite his head off.

"Stop it!" Carl yelled, grabbing me by the throat and forcing me back down. "If you don't stop moving around you'll bleed to death before I can get the bullet out." He eased off of me and glared at Boaz. "Boaz, if you can't take this seriously, then you can go help your dad tend to the Reds. Eli could die from this. It's not a joke."

The reality of the situation seemed to fall over him at Carl's words. It was impossible to ignore the fear in his voice. Boaz looked back at me, studying my pale face, my labored breathing, the bright crimson bathing the flannel sheets beneath me. "Sorry." He said quietly, more to me than to Carl. He turned towards the doorway and yelled out to his twin, "Forget the rope, Trevor! Bring me the chloroform!"

"Make up your mind, already!" Came Trevor's annoyed response. He returned a moment later with an old wine bottle, filled with some kind of liquid. "You sure it'll knock him out? We've never used it on one of us before." Trevor asked Carl. He tore off a piece of fabric from an old shirt and poured a little of the chloroform onto it.

"Its effects probably won't last as long, but it should still work." He answered. He twisted his pliers in the wound, earning another long wail from me. "Trevor! Give it to him!" He yelled as he and Boaz tried desperately to keep my arms and legs down.

Trevor clamped the chloroform soaked cloth over my mouth and nose, forcing me to breathe in the toxic fumes. I slipped almost instantly back into the black, the hole where my soul should've been.

I stood in the black void. There was nothing but darkness, only me, and the brown wolf glaring at me from within a small iron cage. We stood across from each other, staring at the familiar grey-green eyes in each other's skulls.

"Eli." The wolf spoke, his mouth moving like a man's. "Why do you struggle? Why do you fight what you are?" He asked. I recognized his voice as my own, only mixed with the raspy, hungry growl of the wolf. It was the voice I used when my human skin was stripped away. "Why do you refuse to accept me?" Asked the wolf.

"I remember my mother." I replied. "Boaz, Trevor, Wyatt, even my dad and Carl, none of them remember theirs. They were killed when they were still too young, but my dad kept Trish too long, so I remember her. I remember how sad she was, how beaten and hopeless she felt. I remember how afraid she looked whenever dad came to see her, the strange peace in her eyes the night they came to destroy her. I see the same things in the Reds that we capture and even in the ones we devour. I don't want to be the monster…I want to be human…not a beast."

"You didn't seem to be opposed to it earlier today, when you let me loose and strove to destroy your first Red. You were eager to become the monster then." Said the wolf, tilting his large head.

I clenched my hands and jaw. I couldn't deny it. "I couldn't help myself. You're impossible to fight. You're too strong."

"Then why fight me at all?" He asked. "All of your kin, your father and uncle, the twins, have all embraced their wolves. Boaz is so connected to his that he might as well not be wearing the skin at all. Wyatt is still young, but he will accept his eagerly when the time comes. He's very eager to become a full fledged member of the pack. You waste all of your energy trying needlessly to keep me within my cage when you know that it is pointless. You aren't human. You will never be human, no matter how in control you think that you are. That human skin, those human eyes, that human mouth and those human teeth are all apart of a costume. Beneath it all, it is _I _who is the real _you_."

"I fight you because it is what I believe is right. I know we need the human girls for breeding…to keep the species alive, but I don't think we need to kill them or kidnap them to accomplish this."

The wolf reared back his head in a throaty laugh. "You think we can breed as humans do? Fall in love? Marry? You are more foolish than I thought. How would you keep me a secret from your wife when the change is so easily provoked? Her scent, her smile, the very way she says your name, all of it can call me forth. What would happen if she so chose to wear red one day? What would you do then? Do you think that you could control me after what you experienced today? Do you not remember how helpless you felt? Don't you remember the terrible thoughts that passed through you? Do you think you can suppress me forever?" He narrowed his eyes at me.

"We could try, couldn't we?" I asked. " I just want to try."

"Others have tried before. They have always failed. Your father knows more of this than any other Turnskin alive. He cared about your mother, Eli. Not at first, but over time he did grow to love her, as much as a Turnskin can love a Red. He tried for five long years to fight his wolf, but he learned that he couldn't fight his own self. Eventually the wolf broke free of his control and your mother died and you were obviously damaged by his foolish belief that he could fight his nature."

"That isn't true! Carl forced him to kill her!" I barked at my inner wolf.

"Is that what he told you?" He asked. "That Carl made him do it? Tell me, who came for your mother the night she died?"

"Both of them." I answered.

I remembered the night. Mother had woken me up as I slept with her in the Reds' house. She knew they were coming and had used her last moments of life to say goodbye to her only child. The door had burst open. Dad came in and grabbed my mom by her arm. I saw Carl standing in the doorway with a smug look on his face. Dad dragged her away, away from me, away from life. My mother didn't struggle. As she disappeared through the doorway, she looked back at me and smiled with a peaceful look in her eyes. "_Be good, Eli," _were the last words I ever heard my mother say.

"It was your father who took her by the arm that night, the one who took her out into the woods, the one who took her life. Carl may have given him the order, but he had always disobeyed it before. It wasn't until your father's control was waning that he finally followed through with it. The wolf in him couldn't be held back anymore."

I fell silent, fighting angry and mournful tears. I somehow knew the wolf spoke the truth. It all made so much sense. After all, the wolf was me. He had my memories, we shared the same thoughts. What he had said about my father had always been a secret fear, one that I hoped and preyed wasn't really true.

"Touch the birthmark on your back. Tell me what it means." The wolf ordered, his eyes, which burned with a cold and eerie light, were somehow full of compassion for me, the confused pup who was trying desperately not to accept what he was.

I reached back and touched the top of the birthmark. It was a long, jagged pattern, that followed my spine to my hips. It stood out prominently against my skin, being a slightly darker hue than the rest of my skin. In reality it looked more like a scar than a birthmark. "It's not a birthmark. It's the seam for the human skin. It's proof that we Turnskins are only wolves in disguise." I said robotically, as if it were a memorized passage from a favorite book.

"That's right." Said the wolf with a pleased tone. "You are a wolf, disguised as a man. You desire to be human because you've fallen for you own lie, Eli."

I awoke with a ragged sigh. Strands of pitch black silk filled the vision in my left eye. I inhaled deeply, taking in the sweet scent of strawberries. I turned my head towards the scent's origin. A young woman, about my brothers' age, stood at the vanity wringing out blood from a stained rag into a bowl of water. "Melanie?" I rasped. I reached out in the same instant and touched her arm.

With a startled scream, she sprang away from my touch. Pressing herself against the wall, she gawked at me. Her chocolate eyes were wide with fright. Her petal shaped lips were cracked. The bottom lip was busted. I could see a bit of dried blood there.

"It's okay." I reassured her weakly. "Where's my dad?" I asked. She pointed a quivering hand towards the small window in my bedroom, towards the Reds' house. "Could you go tell him to come here, please? I'd like to talk to him." I asked, trying to be polite and calm, despite all the pain that was rolling through me from the bullet wound, which was now stitched and bandaged. Wordlessly, Melanie rushed from the room to find my father. Melanie was an odd one. He was Carl's latest captured Red. She'd been here six months and had never spoken a word. Seeing Carl transform the first time scared her so bad she went mute. He often joked that he'd driven her literally crazy. The poor girl thought she'd died and gone to hell. We were demons in her eyes and Carl was the Devil.

I muffled a scream of pain as I sat up on the bed, groping at my bandaged shoulder. My body definitely didn't like the sudden movement. I waited for a few moments, until my dad finally appeared.

"How's the shoulder?" He asked. He gave me a cup of water. I gulped it down thankfully.

I groaned as a bout of nausea rolled through me. I felt heat at the back of my throat. "Trash can." I pleaded.

Dad quickly grabbed the small plastic waste basket I had by my desk and thrust it into my hands. I threw up the water I'd just drank, my stomach too empty to give anything up. I hadn't eaten in two days in preparation for the large meal I should have enjoyed today. "Sorry." My dad sighed. "Chloroform can make your stomach a little uneasy."

"I'm good." I said, wiping at my mouth with the back of my hand. "I'll be better once I get some food in my stomach."

"You're in luck." He smiled. "Boaz and Trevor are cooking some macaroni and cheese over in the Reds' house."

"Sounds lovely."

"You scared the crap out of me, you know." Said Dad. He ruffled my hair, something he rarely did these days. "I thought I'd lost you, Pup." There was unspoken sadness in my father's eyes. They were bloodshot as if he'd been crying.

"I'm not a pup anymore, Dad." I groaned, shoving his hand away from my head in annoyance.

"You are until you succeed with a solo kill. Your wound was pretty bad, but thankfully we tend to heal quickly. You should be able to try again in a week or so. Maybe we can track down that hunter wannabe and finish what you started. Huh?"

I nodded weakly, swallowing hard. The wolf wanted revenge. The human wanted to just forget. "Dad." I began, my voice sounding fearful. I was unsure if I should tell him about the dream or vision or whatever it was I'd just had. I didn't want him to think I was crazy.

"Yeah?" He asked, all ears.

"Nothing." I shook my head and dragged my carcass out of bed. I couldn't confront him now. Not when he was so relived just to see that I was alive. I was angry at him for letting the wolf win, but I couldn't blame him either. Who knows, maybe the wolf was right. Maybe I was just falling for my own lie.

"I'm heading over to the Reds' house." I said. He helped me pull on some clean clothes and I headed out of our cabin and towards the largest cabin on the compound, which stood at its center. Since the twins were already inside, the padlock was left hanging on it's hinges. I opened up the door and went inside. Melanie was still helping Carl clean up the mess he'd made fixing up my wound, so only my dad's Red, Sarah, was still in the Reds' house. The petite girl with short brown hair was sitting at a table, playing cards with Wyatt. You'd almost think that she was there willingly, if it weren't for the chain wrapped around her ankle and bolted to the center of the floor. While Melanie's strategy for staying alive was to stay quiet, hers was to fight. She gave everyone else a hard time, but she was almost friendly with Wyatt. I guessed she didn't see him as a threat…yet. We used to have more Reds than this, but they'd already been killed after they failed to conceive. Only the elders were allowed to keep Reds. They said my brothers and I still weren't ready.

"And the prodigal son returns." Trevor laughed, grinning ear to ear from where he and Boaz were sitting on the kitchen counter.

"How's the bullet wound?" Asked Boaz. "I still can't believe Red Riding Hood shot you."

"It's just peachy." I replied sarcastically. "Now give me some grub. A little birdie told me that you have mac and cheese." I hoisted myself up on the counter with my good arm.

"That birdie told you right." Boaz smirked and filled a big ceramic bowl with the delicious golden stuff. He handed it to me and I nearly yanked it from his hands. "Gorge yourself. You must be starving since you didn't get to sink your teeth into your Red." He said smugly.

"How was I supposed to know she was packing heat?" I grumbled through a mouthful of macaroni.

"I don't know, but you can't let yourself get distracted. It's hard, especially when they're wearing red, but it's important."

"Well don't you sound like the pro." Trevor snickered. "As I remember, you nearly gave away our cover before we were even out of the welcome center on our blooding." He teased his twin.

Boaz's characteristic smirk stayed in place, but his eyes turned venomous against his younger twin. "And you hesitated when we went to kill her. If you ask me, I don't think our blooding should have counted for you. It was me who delivered the killing bite."

"Yeah, yeah." Trevor grumbled, retreating back to devouring his lunch. He should have known better than to call Boaz out on his hunting skills. In my opinion, he was way too into the killing part.

We heard the door open and turned to see Carl bringing Melanie back in. "Boys, give Sarah some food and put the chain back on for me." He ordered. He gave Melanie a kiss on the top of her head, before lurching back through the door and shutting it loudly behind him.

"Come here, Melanie, Sweetie. Old Boaz will fix you up." Boaz snickered, curling his finger at her in a come hither motion.

Melanie was down right pitiful. She seemed to always quiver. Her features were void of any other emotion but fear. She approached us slowly, her feet sliding on the hardwood floor. I saw fresh red marks on her wrists from where Carl had been yanking her around all day. In the morning they'd be a sickening shade of blue.

Boaz fixed her a bowl with his version of a friendly smile plastered on his face. It looked hungry to me…and not for food. "Enjoy." He cooed as he handed it to her. Melanie took it from him, hesitantly. She sat at the card table with Sarah and Wyatt, eating quietly. Boaz watched her as she moved away to take her seat. I noticed his eyes take on the glow of the wolf.

"Don't even think about it, Boaz." I scolded. "She belongs to Carl. He'll kill you if you lay one finger on her."

"I'm just looking. There's nothing wrong with that." He laughed, smiling crookedly. "Jeeze, you two are way too scared of the old coot."

"He's the alpha." Trevor reminded him. "We've got a right to be. You should be scared of him too."

Boaz's smile grew, flashing sharp teeth and his wolf eyes glinted dangerously. "Carl won't be alpha for much longer. He knows I'm not afraid of him. That's why he corrects me every chance he gets. He's afraid I'm going to turn on him."

Trevor and I stared at him in shock, our mouths wide open.

"Don't talk like that, man! You want Carl to kill you?" Trevor pleaded.

"Relax." Boaz sighed. "I'm only joking. Carl's position is fine and dandy."

"That's not really something you joke about, Boaz. And it sounds like something you'd do." I said, studying Boaz' s face carefully. If there were any of us who were bold enough to try a take over, it would be him. Boaz had alpha written all over him. He was cold and calculating. He took pride in being a Turnskin. He was at ease with his wolf and could slip in and out of the transformation without feeling much pain. Most importantly, he knew how to manipulate people into doing what he wanted. He had a way of inducing fear in us and he used it well. It was why his twin was at his beck and call, and why I didn't trust him.

"I found it pretty funny." Boaz laughed, sharp teeth peeking from beneath stretched lips.

"When do you think we'll get to start taking Reds?" Mused Trevor, trying to change the subject, as he gazed lazily at the two young women the elders had already captured. His silver blue eyes danced over their features, swimming over their curves.

"Who knows." I sighed, swinging my legs over the edge of the counter like a child. Sarah tucked a stray hair behind her ear and the wolf inside of me stirred. _Such a lovely girl. _He hissed. _Doesn't she look delicious, Eli? Let me out and she'll be ours. _I swallowed hard and averted my eyes. That wolf had a voice to rival the devil's. So tempting were the gifts he offered.

Boaz took a deep breath. His eyes fluttered closed in the pleasure of the girls' scent. "Not nearly soon enough." He said, the muscles in his neck tightening. "If they don't let us off our leashes soon, I'm going to go rabid." With that, he jumped off the counter and stalked towards the girls. "Come here." He growled, the wolf's voice leaking into his own. The result was low and gravely, almost demonic. He grabbed Melanie by the hair and dragged the crying girl to the center of the room.

"Come on, Boaz. Stop it. You don't need to jerk Melanie around like that. She'll do whatever you tell her to." I pleaded, annoyed at the excessive force he was using on Carl's Red. There was no sense in it. Melanie's spirit was broken long ago.

Boaz didn't acknowledge that I'd said any thing. Instead, he just pulled on her hair harder and held her far too close, his hands wandering where they shouldn't. He growled something in her ear, but it was too corrupted to make out.

"Damn it, Boaz" I hissed, starting to slide off of the counter to stop what was happening.

Trevor grabbed my arm. "Don't" He whispered. "Trust me, it's best you just let him do as he likes. He knows where his boundaries are. He's just seeing how far he can push them before Carl snaps. That "joke" about a take over…" Trevor's eyes sharpened. "He meant every word."

With a cruel chuckle, Boaz shoved Melanie to the floor. Sarah jumped to her friend's aid, only to be quickly reminded of her place with a swift slap across her face. Wyatt stayed where he was, frozen in shock as he watched his eldest cousin brutalize his father's Red. Still, there was a strange look of admiration in the young Turnskin's eyes.

I made a move to rush Boaz. A growl threatened to escape my throat. It settled angrily in my chest. I wanted to snap at Boaz, remind him how dangerous provoking Carl would be for all of us, but Trevor gripped my good arm securely, not willing to let go. "I know you don't like seeing stuff like this happen, but you can't stop him. You're wounded. You're weak right now and Boaz is the strongest of all three of us. If you challenge Boaz, he'll win. Please, just stay out of his way. I've already watched you nearly die once today. That's enough."

Despite every instinct that I possessed that told me this couldn't happen, I realized that Trevor was right. I couldn't fight Boaz. Not today. Not like this. Wounded and unwilling to the let the wolf take over what little human soul I had left.

Boaz finally wrapped a heavy chain around Melanie's ankle. He shoved her down and yanked out a few strands of hair, before leaving the battered girl where she'd fallen. He returned to us with t a slated look on his face. He held the bits of long dark hair beneath his nose as he inhaled the scent happily. "Damn, I love strawberries." He groaned, a sickening grin on his face. In many ways, Boaz was more wolf than any of us.

He leapt over the counter and grabbed his car keys, which were laid by the sink. "I'm in the mood for some sweets." He said, tossing the bits of hair into a trash can. "Let's go into town. I want me some of Mrs. Carny's chocolate covered strawberries. How about ya'll?"

Trevor painted on an enthusiastic smile as he hopped off the counter. "Sure, I could go up for some of her brownies, myself."

I nodded quietly and tore away my eyes from Melanie who's entire body shuttered as she sobbed into the floorboards. "Yeah. Sounds good. I'll tag along. I need Tylenol, anyway." I replied absently.

The three of us started towards the door. Wyatt jumped up from his seat. Cards flew everywhere and fluttered softly to the floor. "Can I come?" He asked, peering at us pleadingly with his unusual eyes.

"I don't think so, whelp." Said Boaz, looking at Wyatt through cut eyes.

"Aww! Come on!" Wyatt whined. "I'm bored!"

"Let the kid come, Boaz. What's the harm?" I spoke up on my little cousin's behalf. He was a good kid and there was no one around his age to play with, so we were all he had.

"I plan on doing a little hunting. You can't fully shed your skin yet. You'd just complicate things. Stay here and keep the girls company." He snickered Melanie's way.

"You're hunting? Without our dads? Do you have permission for that?" Asked Wyatt, a look of worry flashing across his young face.

Boaz started to laugh. "And that's why you're always going to be an underling, little cousin." Boaz stalked towards the door with Trevor and I in toe. "You don't have what it takes to be a big dog." Boaz flashed Wyatt a toothy grin and a wolf's penetrating glare.

I sensed a dark threat beneath those seemingly harmless words. I had the sickening feeling that the world I'd known my entire eighteen years was about to be turned on its head at the hands of my eldest brother.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

My brothers and I crammed into the twins' white jeep. They'd taken off the top and the doors, leaving it open and frankly vulnerable. God help us if we ever got t-boned.

We wove through the mountain roads, slowly but surely making our way down the mountain. The elders preferred to stick to the forests, but we young ones were restless and enjoyed the excitement that going into town offered. We tried to steer clear of the larger towns like Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, which are very popular among the tourists. Turnskins get nervous in crowds. We aren't immortal or invulnerable. A bad fall can kill us just as easily as a bullet, therefore we have to play it safe. More people equal a higher likelihood of your prey being armed. People get compliant in smaller towns. They feel safer, more secure. Hell, most people in the countryside don't even lock their doors. They've let their guard down, leaving themselves wide open to have their lives ravaged by one of us. In small towns, we can waltz right into their homes, scoop up one of their pretty daughters and disappear into the night without them ever knowing. They make it ridiculously easy for us to destroy their happy lives.

A sign that read _Welcome to Pinewood!, _painted in chipped hunter's green paint welcomed us to our favorite haunt. Pinewood was possibly the smallest of the tiny villages that dotted the mountains. It was mostly made up of mom and pop shops, small restaurants and private homes. It got its name from the thick forest of pine trees that surrounded it. The town was built around the local saw mill, but a few years ago the mill was shut down due to the struggling economy. A lot of people moved away upon the death of the mill, but some stayed behind. They kept the town running however they could, mostly preying on lost tourists who took the wrong exit off the interstate.

We sputtered down main street, until we spotted the sign for _Carny's General Goods. _We whipped into a parking spot at the side of the curb. Finding an empty spot wasn't difficult. The road was deserted, aside from our beat up jeep.

"Ah, it's good to be away from the compound!" Boaz breathed a huge sigh of relief as he got out of the jeep. He breathed in the pine sap saturated air. "I love this place." He watched a pair of high school girls walk past us with a charming, playful smile on his face. The girls smiled back flirtatiously and giggled amongst themselves. "Nothing but a smorgasbord for as far as the eye can see." He whispered under his breath, running his tongue across his teeth as he admired their backsides. Was it just me or was Boaz just getting worse and worse by the hour?

"You alright?"

I blinked away my stare and shifted my focus to Trevor's concerned face. It was funny. Boaz and Trevor were identical twins. They had the same face, eyes, and voice. Yet they couldn't be more different. Boaz was bold and ruthless. He loved being a Turnskin and all that it entailed. Trevor mostly went along with whatever Boaz said. However, he shared some of my reservations.

"Can you make him stop mauling them with his eyes?" I asked. "He's creeping me out."

"Heel, Boaz." Trevor laughed. "If you creep out the Reds, they won't give you the time of day."

Boaz leered silently back at us.

We entered the small general store. The jingle bells above the door chimed at our entry. Mr. and Mrs. Carny had put them up there two Christmases ago and had never gotten around to taking them down. Walking in, I tried not to look at the post board by the door, layered in old missing person posters. Mot of them were young women. They peered out at me, smiling brightly in their family photographs. I was one of the few who knew why they were missing. Some were runaways, some were dead, two of them were chained inside one of our cabins and some we'd eaten.

"How ya'll doing, boys?" Asked Mr. Carney from one of the three coolers at the back of the store. He was nearing his seventies now. He'd worked nearly his whole life to keep his own father's general store alive. His hands were callused, his back was starting to curve due to age and his knees were giving out, but that friendly smile of his still remained beneath his handlebar mustache. "It's been a while since you've been to town." He added, busily restocking the cooler with canned and bottled beer.

"Not so good, Mr. Carny. Eli got shot." Said Trevor. He pulled back my jacket to show him the bandages that were peeking out the top of my shirt.

"How in the world did you do that?" Asked the old man in a horrified tone.

"Hunting accident." I lied quickly. It seemed like a plausible excuse given I had two knuckleheads for brothers.

"I thought he was a deer." Boaz shrugged. "Does Mrs. Carny have any of her fresh goodies."

"She's just taking a new batch of her brownies out of the oven. Barbara!" He called to his wife at the top of his lungs.

"Hold your horses!" She yelled back in annoyance. Mr. Carny simply smiled. He and Barbara had been married since they were eighteen and they still had that unmistakable happiness in their eyes. Even after all these decades together, they still loved each other. I sometimes felt jealous of them. It was a feeling I'd never know. Turnskins are incapable of it.

The old lady toddled her way out of the back room and sat a basket fully of plastic wrapped brownies on the counter. She was clad in a frilly apron with her long, bone white hair braided and dangling down her back. "Well if it isn't the Roan trio." She giggled in her crackly old lady's voice. "Come for your weekly treats did you?"

"You know it." Boaz grinned. "We can't resist your sweets, Mrs. Carny. They make us go weak in the knees."

"Aww. Thank you, Boaz dear. I'm glad you like them. There's not that many people around these days to try my recipes. Everyone's taken to the big cities since the mill shut down. It's good to know I'll always have you three to feed." Her pale eyes widened and her smile fell when she looked at me. "Eli! What in the world, happened, child!"

"Boaz accidentally shot him while they were hunting." Said Mr. Carny.

"Oh my god!"

"I'm alright." I tried to reassure her by lying through my teeth. "The bullet just grazed me."

"Well you look awful." She shook her head at me. "You're so pale. Why don't you go sit down in the back while your brothers get whatever supplies you need. I'm sure there's a long list. You can rest on the couch back there. My granddaughter's working on a new recipe right now. I'm sure she'd like a guinea pig."

"I didn't know you had a granddaughter." She'd never mentioned her before. I knew they had two daughters. One moved away a long time ago. The other we took.

"She's the one and only." Mrs. Carny smiled proudly. "Her mama's having some…medical issues right now so she's going to be staying with us for a while. Dinah's about your age, maybe a month or two younger. I'm sure you'll get along."

Dinah? My brothers and I exchanged fiery glances. Hesitantly, I followed Mrs. Carny into the back room where a sitting area and the kitchen was. Red Riding Hood was busy taking a pound cake from the oven. The infamous jacket hung on a coat rack nearby. Her unmistakable red rooted hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

"Dinah." Said Mrs. Carny, getting the girl's attention. When Dinah registered my presence, her eyes widened ever so slightly and she pressed her lips together. The pan in her hands quivered. She sat it down on the kitchen counter quickly. The heat from the pan had begun to ooze through her oven mitts.

"This is Eli Roan. His family are long time patrons of mine. He got hurt in a hunting accident recently, so I'm letting him rest back here while his brothers are shopping. Treat him nicely, now." Said Dinah's grandmother.

"Sure, Grandma." Dinah muttered.

Mrs. Carny scurried back into the store room, leaving the hunter and her prey alone in her kitchen.

"You son of a-"

"I don't think your grandma would approve of you cussing out one of her valuable customers like that, Miss Dinah." I cut her off, my eyes glaring so hard at her they hurt.

"You should be dead." She hissed.

"Close but no cigar." I teased. "You need to work on your aim, hunter."

She grabbed a knife from the counter and held it between us, pointing the sharp tip towards me. "How are you alive? That bullet was made of pure silver."

I couldn't help but burst into laughter, something I instantly regretted as my wound screamed in protest. I hissed at the pain through the laughter. "You have no idea what you're doing, do you? Why the hell would the bullet being silver matter? You didn't hit my heart or anything major, so I didn't die."

"All the stories. They say that your kind are susceptible to silver."

"What kind of stories have you been reading? That Hollywood garbage?"

"No, old texts. The old legends. They all say the same."

"They also say that we can only change when the moon is full and that you can become one of us with just a bite. None of that is true. I can change whenever I feel like it and we breed just like everything else. No biting required. Humans came up with those silly rules to make themselves feel safer, so they wouldn't have to face the fact that we we're walking around among them and that there's nothing they can do about it. It gave them a feeling of being in control when it couldn't be farther from the truth." I narrowed my eyes at her. "You did almost kill me. I came very close, but thankfully my uncle knows a little about medicine and he was able to extract the bullet. I'll be good as new in no time."

Her grip on her knife tightened. She lifted it to my throat and held it inches away. "You're going to go hunting again as soon as you're able, aren't you?" She growled. "I should kill you right now. I'd be saving some poor girl's life."

"Really? You're going to kill me right in the middle of your grandma's kitchen?" I chuckled darkly. "You and I both know that's just a bluff. My brothers are here. If you so much as put a scratch on me they'll rip you apart."

"I can beat them. I'm not afraid." She growled defiantly. The glimmer in her eyes gave away her lie. She was terrified.

"We know where you are now. We can kill you and your grandparents any time we like. I suggest you keep that in mind before you make empty threats." I bore sharp teeth at her, the wolf's growl slightly tinting my voice. "Put the knife away. You back down and so will I. My family wants revenge. I'm the only one that can keep them from following through on it. If you love your family, I suggest you calm yourself down." Her eyes shifted, studying me, looking for any sign of deceit. Slowly, she lowered the knife, though she still held it in her hand at her side.

"I'm not going to put it away entirely. You can forget that." She grumbled.

"Fair enough." With a sigh I eased onto the plaid colored couch. My wound was throbbing. "Your grandma mentioned you needed a guinea pig. I'm happy to volunteer."

Grumbling to herself, she cut me a piece of the wild berry pound cake. She shoved the plate into my hands. "You don't want revenge? Wouldn't you want it the most? I tried to kill you." She questioned me with an untrusting glare.

"Believe it or not, we're not all bloodthirsty monsters." I said through a full mouth of hot cake. The sweetness and tartness of the berries set off explosions of rich flavor in my mouth. "Some of us don't like to kill. I wish I didn't have to, but it's apart of what I am."

"You don't want to kill me?" She asked, disbelieving. She laughed bitterly. "So you're a good werewolf?"

_Oh I do want to kill you, my dear. I want to taste your blood and feel your flesh give way beneath my teeth. I want to hear you scream for death. I'll make you pay for what you did to me._ The wolf snarled in my head. "I never said anything about being good. A part of me does want to kill you…very badly."

"So do it." She challenged. Her body went rigid. All her muscles tightened, ready to leap into the fight. "I'm not afraid of you. I'll fight you with all I've got."

"No."

"Why not?" She demanded. "I'm right here. I'm not going to run."

"I'm a Turnskin. I may look like a man, but I'm a wolf at the core. Wolves are born with the innate instinct to hunt and kill, but they still have the power to choose when to kill their prey and when to leave it alone. I'm choosing not to kill you. It's not that I don't want to, believe me. It's just that I like your grandparents. They've always been good to my family. Even when we didn't deserve it."

"Like when you took my aunt Linda?" She asked, her eyes silently accusing me.

"I didn't take her." I shrugged. "I was five when she disappeared."

"I'm sure you know who did." She hissed. "A family member perhaps?" Her mint colored eyes glared at me, cutting into me like the girls' in the missing posters. One poster in particular flashed across my memory. It was old and tattered from the wear of years. A sixteen year old girl with mint colored eyes and fiery ginger hair smiled happily, hugging her older sister, pressing their faces together. Just four weeks after that picture was taken. Linda vanished without a trace.

I swallowed hard, readying myself for another bold faced lie. "We didn't take her. Not every dissapearance is our handiwork, Dinah. Humans can be wolves in their own right." That much was true. Humans are capable of just as much evil as we are, but that's not what happened to Linda.

"Don't give me that bull." Dinah spat, shaking her head wildly, knocking strands of her hair loose from her ponytail. "My mother was there when she was taken. They were chased by a black wolf, just like the one that threatened me earlier. Who is he?"

I pressed my lips together and hoisted myself to my feet. I handed her my clean plate. "That was delicious." I complimented. "Thanks for the cake."

She took the plate from me and threw on the floor, shattering it to pieces. "Damn it! Answer me!"

I breathed raggedly. "I don't know." I shrugged.

"Liar." She hissed, baring her teeth at me. Her eyes glimmered with tears she'd never allow to fall.

I dared to step closer to her, to meet her pain filled eyes and show the pain in mine. "You have to protect your family. I have to protect mine." I whispered. I quickly turned away and rushed back into the store room.

"You ready?" Asked Trevor as I appeared out of the back room.

"Yeah." I said weakly. I grinned at Mrs. Carny. "Thank you. I'm feeling better now. Dinah aught to sell that pound cake. It's really good."

She smiled proudly. "I'll have her make another one just for you." She rang up my brothers purchases on her antique cash register. "I threw in a few extra pecan clusters. I know how much you like them, Eli. Free of charge."

"Thanks!" Me and my brothers bid as we left the general store. As soon as we were outside, we grouped together, my brothers eager to know what went on in the back room.

"Was it the same girl?" Asked Trevor.

"Definitely." I nodded.

"We'll tell Dad and Carl as soon as we get back. Maybe we can pay the Carnys a visit tonight." Said Boaz threateningly.

"No." I spat. "_We're_ not going to do anything. If anyone's going to kill that little witch it's going to be me. I chose her for my blooding kill. As soon as my damn shoulder is healed, I'm going to finish what I started." I instantly cringed inwardly, frightened by the coldness of my own voice. It didn't sound like me at all. It sounded like Boaz…like the wolf.

The twins smiled approvingly.

"Let's just go." I urged them, hurrying towards the jeep. "I feel like I'm about to pass out." I was tired and weak. My legs were trembling, my wound throbbing. The wolf was shouting obscenities in my head so loudly that my ears ached.

We all climbed back into the jeep. We'd just begun a slow crawl back towards our mountain when we were caught by a red light. Boaz mumbled a curse and sat back in the seat with a heavy sigh. In a town as small as Pinewood, traffic lights weren't really needed. We were the only ones on the road at this hour. It was getting late and the shops were beginning to close for the night. The light turned green and just as Boaz was about lurch forward, a girl started to cross the road. She turned her head and gave us an apologetic smile and wave as she jogged to the other side of the road. She was a bit on the heavy side, more curvy than most her age. However she had a pretty face with large hazel eyes, full lips and blond hair that whipped about her head in the wind. As she walked by she reached up to sweep some of her hair out of her face. On her wrist was a simple bracelet woven from cherry red cotton. Boaz visibly stiffened, his body going rigged. The only movement came from his eyes, which shifted as they followed the girl's every move. "We're not going home just yet." He whispered darkly as he watched her dissapear into the Pinewood pharmacy.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

The pungent aroma of disinfectant was the first to greet us as my brothers and I slipped inside of the pharmacy. However, we almost immediately noticed the more subtle fragrance of lilac that was slowly over powering the other scents.

"Stock up on some Tylenol." Boaz ordered absently, his attention solely on the blond girl we had fallowed in. She was strolling through the soap and shampoo isle, completely unaware of the eyes that were stalking her. "This'll only take a moment." He smiled eerily.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"I'm going to ask her if she wants to go for a ride. That's all." He replied, rolling his shoulders back. Even through his tee-shirt, I could see the shifting of the wolf's muscles beneath his skin.

"We're really not supposed to." Trevor tried to reason with his twin. "You know you're going to get in trouble, hunting without the elders' permission."

"If you want to keep being Carl's lapdog, fine, but I sure as hell am not." He snarled in a bated breath. A leer soon followed. "Do what you want little brothers, but I'm going to have some fun."

"Fine," Trevor relented, his submissive personality once again keeping him from controlling his twin in any way. "But I won't have anything to do with it. I'm not going to share your punishment…again."

The wolf shifting slightly once more, Boaz stalked towards his prey.

"What are you doing?" I hissed at Trevor once Boaz was gone. "You can't keep letting Boaz get his way. You're his twin; he'll listen to you more than he will me."

Trevor looked back at me sheepishly. I imagined his wolf-self doing the same, with his ears laid back against his head and tail tucked between his legs. "Eli, like it or not, Boaz is going to be the alpha one of these days, probably soon. Once the pecking order is rearranged, you'll want to be on good terms with him, trust me."

I sighed heavily in disappointment. "You're such a coward." I spat in disgust, shaking my head at him.

"Maybe," He shrugged. "But at least I'll still be alive when the shit hits the fans."

Trevor and I pretended to be browsing through different brands of pain relievers, while Boaz was busy talking with the girl. They were whispering quietly, but with our superior hearing, we could make out every syllable as clearly as if they were yelling.

"So, Iris, are you new in town or just visiting?" He asked, his words dripping with seductive charm.

"Visiting," the girl, Iris, replied timidly. "My family's renting a cabin just outside of town. We forgot to bring some essentials so they sent me on an errand." She explained. I could hear her shifting around some shampoo bottles. The sound mingled with her slightly labored breathing as nervousness took hold.

They chatted briefly. Boaz told Iris about our family and our compound, giving her no more knowledge about our lives than I had given Dinah. Iris seemed intrigued by the different sort of life the tall stranger led. It was the old game that our kind liked to play. Give them enough information to ensnare their interest and hide the rest to keep it. It worked beautifully.

She smiled coyly and self-consciously fidgeted with her hair. No doubt she could hear desire in his voice and feel his eyes on her skin, scouring her. She probably felt shy and confused as to why he seemed so interested in her. Maybe she wasn't used to the attention. I could hear her heart racing, beating ever faster as he spoke to her in a hushed breath. I knew what would come next and it made my worry grow. Would Boaz pay for this sin alone or would we all be punished for his impatience?

A few minutes later, Boaz returned to us with Iris in toe. "Iris, these are my younger brothers, Eli and Trevor." He introduced each of us to her.

Iris smiled at us. She was pretty in a subtle way. Her sweet and naïve disposition was already apparent. These sorts of girls, the quiet or plain ones that most people ignore, are often the easiest for us to lure away; they were also Boaz' favorite prey.

Dimples formed at each corner of her mouth and her eyes sparkled with life and excitement. "Hi, it's nice to meet you both." She greeted. "I'm Iris."

"It's nice to meet you too." I replied, trying to keep my unhappiness out of my voice.

"I thought we could take Iris for a ride, show her the sights," said Boaz.

"Why not? We don't have to be back for a while." Trevor shrugged, painting on a broad smile that mirrored Boaz's.

We led the young girl out to our jeep. Trevor was banished into the back seat with me so that Iris could ride shotgun next to Boaz. She was smiling. Her cheeks were rosy. She thought this was a date. She thought the boy next to her liked her, cared about her. She didn't realize that she was sitting up front so that he could control her. She didn't know why he was so interested in her. She didn't know why we were driving up to the park, deeper into the wilderness and away from all aid. She wouldn't realize it until it was far too late.

Boaz slung his arm around Iris' shoulders as we drove up a winding road. Iris' blush darkened. "You'll love it up here. It's very peaceful, even when it's crawling with tourists." Boaz promised.

"I've been there before, actually. My family and I come up to the cabin every summer and we usually always visit the park before heading home," said Iris.

Boaz smiled crookedly. "So why'd you come? You couldn't resist my charm?"

"I-I was bored." She stuttered, shrugging her shoulders in fainted indifference. Her face was nearly all red. "And…I've never been asked out before." She added her voice barely audible.

"No way!" Boaz gasped playfully. "A pretty girl like you should be beating them off with a stick."

"I'm…shy…I guess." She muttered, playing with her hair again.

Boaz's eyes glinted as he watched her guard fall away. I knew what he was thinking. Hook. Line. And sinker. This one was in the bag.

We hadn't even gotten half way to the park when Boaz suddenly began to slow down and turned on his turn signal. He pulled off of the main road and onto a narrow, barely there, walking path. "Where are we going?" asked Iris, tension forming in her voice. I watched her swallow hard.

Boaz reassured her with a pleasant grin. "I just wanted to show you this great little waterfall, just up this path. It's not open to the public. Most people don't know it's there."

"Oh." Iris muttered, wringing her hands in her lap. "Umm…we really don't have to stop. Let's just go to the park."

"Nonsense, it'll only take a moment." He assured her.

"O…K." She squeaked quietly, her brow beginning to furrow.

Boaz put the jeep in park and we all climbed out. Iris walked on ahead while the three of us lingered back. "This isn't how we do things." Trevor hissed at Boaz beneath his breath. "We need to take her on up to the park. We're too close to the road here. She'll be heard. We could be seen."

"What are you up to?" I demanded, feeling my nervousness increase with each step forward Iris took.

"I have no intention of killing this one. I'm taking her home." He chuckled darkly as the hair on his forearm began to thicken and his voice took on a husky, rasping tone.

"The elders said we weren't ready." I growled lowly.

"Eli's right. Dad and Carl will kill us if we take a Red without their permission." Trevor pleaded.

"Are you coming?" Iris called back at us; her brow furrowed even more with anxiety.

"Be right there!" Boaz called back. He smiled lopsidedly at us, showing his quickly sharpening teeth. "Trust me, little brothers. I know what I'm doing. If Carl causes us any problems, I'll handle it. I promise." His glowing eyes shifted to his twin. They shone a cold blue. "Now come on, Trevor, I could use your help. You remember our doppelganger technique?"

Trevor nodded quietly, lowering his gaze to the ground.

As he walked past me, I grabbed his sleeve. "Don't do it, Trevor." I pleaded desperately.

Trevor sighed heavily. "You don't get it, Eli. Boaz is my twin. I have to help him." He whispered, his eyes staring blankly at the ground, unable to meet my glare.

"He's lost his mind." I growled. "He's going to keep pushing Carl until he kills him and he's going to drag you down with him."

"Eli, you can wait back at the truck if you want." Boaz hissed at me, shoving my wounded shoulder harshly, his glare sharp and threatening. I stumbled back, groping at my shoulder and biting at my lower lip to keep from screaming at the pain. He glanced expectantly at his twin. "Trevor? You gonna help me or stay back with this mutt?"

"I'm coming." He replied quietly.

Feeling angry and strangely betrayed, I retreated back to the jeep and watched them as they caught up with Iris and led her further up the path.

"Idiots," I grumbled, biting at my nails nervously. They were far away, but I could still make out their forms. Iris seemed to be catching on to their plan. Her steps were more hesitant. She kept looking back towards the jeep, towards the main road. Even over the great distance, the fear in her features was evident. Boaz had his arm around her shoulder and was laying on the charm like butter on toast. He was trying to keep her attention away from Trevor, who was lingering further back, near the edge of the path where it bled into the forest. As they drew closer to where the path disappeared around a curve, Trevor picked up a large tree limb from the ground. His movements were not as subtle as they should have been. Iris noticed it immediately. Finally realizing her mistake, Iris began to struggle. She flung punches at Boaz's face and landed a kick in his stomach. It knocked Boaz back enough that she was able to make a run for it. She ran towards me and the jeep.

_I should probably stop her._ I thought, but I never got the chance.

With an explosion of frenetic energy, Boaz transformed. The human skin peeled away, his bones and muscles contorted back to their natural state. He was a wolf in seconds, making my own transformation look like child's play. He charged after her, corralling her back towards Trevor. Trevor grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the ground. As she tried to scramble back to her feet, Trevor swung the limb at her head, knocking her out cold. The whole attack was over in moments. Iris never stood a chance.

Slowly, I got out and went to help the twins get her back to the jeep. With a soft moan, Boaz's body shifted back into a man's shape and the human skin regenerated over the wolf's pelt. The seam closed completely down his spine, leaving only a long scar as evidence of its true nature. "Damn." Boaz cursed, rolling his head around and cracking his neck. "Why does changing back always hurt more?"

I slowly got out of the car and walked towards them. "There's a change of clothes under the back seat. Go ahead and get dressed. Trevor and I'll get her into the jeep." I said, my voice sounding strangely robotic. Trevor and I stood over Iris' body for a moment, taking in what we'd help do. There was a deep gash at her hairline. Blood poured from the wound and dyed her hair a vibrant red.

_Such a pretty thing, this wearer of red. Did you see your brother's skill, his ease at which he shed his false clothing? He is a real Turnskin. Look at what he accomplished, a Red, helpless and at your mercy. Look, boy! Learn! This is what you were bred to do!_ The wolf babbled in my head, laughing maniacally.

"That was quick." I muttered unhappily, trying to ignore my wolf-self as much as possible. He seemed to only be getting louder as the hours passed.

Trevor spat at the ground and tossed the blood splattered limb back into the woods. "It could've been done faster, but she figured out what was going on before I could knock her out. Usually, Boaz doesn't have to transform at all and it can be done quietly.

"Usually?" My breath caught in my throat.

"We've been…practicing, I guess. Well…Boaz has, sort of." Trevor fumbled, his face reddening as he realized that he'd said too much. "When we go out for our hunts, we try to get them without transforming as much as possible. If we can perfect it, we'll be able to hunt anywhere and we won't be limited to the park anymore. I wasn't sure it would work without killing her. There's no guarantee of knocking them out with one hit. There's more time for them to scream if you keep them alive."

"Do Dad and Carl know you've "practicing"?" I asked.

"No, but what they don't know won't hurt them. Besides, we've always killed them before. There was no chance of them finding out."

"I suppose they'll find out now, won't they?" I said, as he and I lifted Iris' limp body from the path and made our way back to the jeep.

"Yeah," Trevor huffed with exertion as we lifted her from the ground and tossed her unceremoniously into the back seat of the car.

We were silent as we headed home. Boaz drove up the mountain road, nonchalantly humming an upbeat pop song. Trevor and I sat in the back with Iris strewn over us. Trevor kept his arm wrapped around her throat while I held onto her legs. Iris was beginning to come around. She moaned in pain and tried to squirm free. When she struggled too much, Trevor squeezed her throat tighter until she grew still again. The cab of the jeep grew still quieter, save for the subtle quivering sobs of the frightened girl, caught in the hunter's snare.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

When we pulled onto our driveway, we could see Dad and Carl exit the Red's cabin. They stood in front of the Jeep as it came to a stop. A feeling of panic washed over me. They didn't look happy to see us at all. Their arms were crossed over their chests; murderous rage was evident in their narrowed eyes and scowls. Even from the back seat of the car I could see the muscles in their arms shifting and the subtle changing of their facial features. They can already smell the new Red, her blood, sweat and tears.

"Uh. Oh." Boaz cackled, an unthreatened grin spreading across his face. "It looks like the jig is up."

"This is bad, very bad." Trevor murmured. His eyes were shifting wildly in fear. Beads of sweat rolled down from his temples.

I swallowed hard myself, feeling my insides quivering. What was going to happen to us for helping our brother break one of the unspoken laws of our kind, to never disobey the alpha?

Boaz jumped out of the Jeep, no evidence of fear showing in his expression. He seemed oblivious to how much he had screwed up.

"Hey." Boaz greeted.

"What have you done, boy?" Carl hissed. He bore his teeth at the younger Turnskin. His teeth were sharp and jagged. His ocher eyes flashed with anger. Beneath his voice, we could hear the rumbling growl of the wolf.

Iris must have heard it too, for she sprung to life and started to struggle again. "Let me go! Please! Let me go!" She wailed, pitifully, thrashing around.

Trevor grabbed her throat and squeezed hard, making her gag and choke. "Shut up or I swear I'll break your damn neck!" He warned her. His facial features changed violently as he roared at her, twisting into a demonic snarl.

I grabbed her arms and forced them down at her sides. "Please, stop struggling. It'll do you no good." I breathed softly, though it didn't bring her any comfort. Trevor slapped a hand over her mouth and her body slumped again with defeat. Her face turned placid, her eye lids drooping over her bulging eyes. Their blue color dulled. Hers was the look of acceptance. I'd seen it a dozen times before. She'd be still now. She thought she was going to die and she might as well let it come, because she saw no way out of the trap she'd stupidly fallen into.

Outside, Boaz and Carl were still fighting.

"I saw one I wanted so I took her. I'm not a pup anymore. I don't understand why you're so angry, old man." Said Boaz with an eerie calmness.

"You know better!" Carl hissed. "No one takes a Red without my say so! No one! I could kill you for this!" Carl's muscles pulsed and his hands flinched, the fingers curling into claws.

"But you won't." Said Boaz, peering at the alpha like he was sizing him up for a real fight. "There's too few of us. You wouldn't risk damaging our numbers further just because I took a girl without asking permission."

"Stupid whelp!" Carl growled. With a snarl, he leapt at Boaz, but my Dad grabbed him by the back of his shirt and held him back.

"Carl, stop. This isn't worth losing a pack member over. If he thinks that keeping a Red under control is easy, let him learn otherwise on his own." My dad said calmly to his brother. It surprised me that he stood up to Carl. He usually just lets him do what he wanted and stayed out of his way.

Trevor and I cringed as Carl punched Boaz in the face. His claws slashed across the younger boy's cheek, leaving deep, jagged cuts across the skin. "If you ever pull a stunt like this again, I'll drive you out of this pack. Do you hear me?" Carl snarled. For a moment we thought Boaz was going to get hit again or that his wrath would be turned on us, but instead he turned away and raced into the woods, the human skin flaking off of the wolf's greasy black hide and blowing away in the wind as he departed.

Boaz hadn't fallen when he was struck, a remarkable feat given how hard Carl had hit him. He had only pivoted slightly. He straightened himself up and turned his head toward the Jeep. He smirked victoriously back at us while blood ran down from his face like gruesome rivers. Coldness clenched my stomach. Boaz had guessed right about our uncle. He didn't have the guts to kill us, no matter what we did. He'd threaten us, possibly beat us to within an inch of our lives, but he wouldn't kill us. We were too valuable to him alive. Boaz, however, had no such qualms for getting rid of pack members he deemed unneeded or troublesome. I wondered how much longer it would take for Carl to realize that.

Boaz walked quietly back to the Jeep. He grabbed Iris by the arm and yanked her roughly out of it. She made a small cry of pain at the quick movement, for which he rewarded her with a yank of her hair. "Come on, girly. I have someone I want you to meet." He brought the frightened girl to Dad while Trevor and I hurried out of the Jeep.

"This is my father, Henry Roan. Dad, this is Iris. Isn't she pretty?" He grinned with pride. Iris didn't try to pull out of Boaz's grip. She stood still with her eyes cast downward. Her legs trembled under her, but she didn't cry or whimper. Her eyes weren't even misty. She just stared at Dad's feet, slowly lifting her gaze to look sheepishly at him until she was looking him dead in the face.

"This is the girl you nearly got killed over?" Asked Dad disbelievingly, as he looked her up and down. He drew close and grabbed Iris' face, lifting it up so he could look at it appreciatively. "You'd best be careful. This girl isn't afraid to meet your eyes. She'll be a handful." He released her, surprisingly gently.

"I know. She kicked the wind out me before Trevor could knock her out. She's not as stupid as I first thought." Iris flinched slightly at Boaz's words, knowing that it was true. She was stupid for ever following this stranger, for ever putting her faith and trust in these monsters. If it hadn't been for her own foolishness, she'd still be back at her family's cabin, safe and sound.

"Take her to the Red's cabin. Get her cleaned up. Her head wound looks bad." said Dad, gesturing at the matting of dried blood on the side of her head. "There are some gowns hanging up in the closet in the back bedroom. I'm sure we have _something_ that'll fit her." His eyes shifted towards me and Trevor. "Trevor, get back to the house. I need to speak to you about your involvement in this. Eli, go with Boaz for now and help him with Iris, she looks like she's thinking up something cunning." He was glaring towards the new captured Red. I glanced at her and saw the challenge in her suddenly darker blue eyes.

I shot Trevor an apologetic look as Boaz and I turned towards the Red's cabin. Dad placed a hand at the back of his neck, coaxing him back to the house. Trevor was trembling slightly. His eyes were down cast. For a moment, he looked even more frightened than our new captured girl. He knew that a beating was coming. I'd get one of my own before the night was through, I was sure.

The Red's Cabin was the only one with electricity and plumbing. It was more of a convenience thing than us trying to be nice to them. It allowed us to care for them without having to escort them across the compound repeatedly every day. So when we need to prepare a new girl for the ceremony, the Red's Cabin is the first place we take her so that she can be bathed and dressed.

When we entered the Red's cabin, the other girls and Wyatt, who'd, been playing Monopoly with them, sprung up from the card table. Melanie burst into tears when she saw the new Red. Sarah glared at me with a fierce look of pure hatred, as if it were me who had captured her and not Boaz. Wyatt stared in shock as Boaz shoved Iris towards the back rooms, where a bathroom and two bedrooms were located. The girl stumbled and fell, but quickly scrambled to her feet again and again, before Boaz could yell at her to get up.

"What's going on?" asked Wyatt.

"Get home." I ordered in a low breath. I could already hear Boaz screaming demands at Iris. There was a loud bang as he shoved her into something.

"But I…"

"I said, get home!" I yelled at the young boy, my eyes flashing the color of the wolf's, all bright, burning green. I willed my voice to lower its pitch at the look of fear on Wyatt's young face. Wyatt…so eager to grow up…but ignorant of what that really meant. "There are some things that children should never see. This is one of them. I know that you want to be included." I cringed as Iris let out a shrill scream and I heard the unmistakable sound of Boaz's sickening laughter. "But you're not ready, not for this. _I_ don't even want to be here."

Reluctantly, Wyatt left and I went to help my brother prepare his new, unwilling bride, for the atrocity that would be her wedding.

I went to the bathroom door and bit my tongue against the curse words that threatened to spill out. Iris, now stripped of all her clothing, was kneeling in the tub while Boaz scrubbed her skin raw with an abrasive pot scrubber. He had her face pressed against the tiled wall, so hard that I was sure that that side of her face would be bruised the next day. A steady stream of sobs burst from Iris's cracked lips. Her blood mixed with the soapy water. I turned my eyes away from the pitiful sight. "What size is she?" I asked, robotically.

Boaz released the girl long enough to look at the tag on the shirt that lay discarded nearby. "Let's try a twelve." He replied. He grabbed her again, pressed her face into the wall and continued his work. Iris cried out as the scrubber raked across a sensitive piece of flesh.

I quickly escaped into one of the bedrooms to retrieve some clothes for her to wear. I shut the door behind me in a sad attempt to block out the sounds of Iris' torture. I knew that this was all a part of the first night ritual. I'd heard my dad and uncle talk about it, but I'd never seen every aspect of it, let alone took part in it. I felt ill. Growing up, I had wanted to be treated like an adult; I suppose I finally got my wish. Sighing against a feeling of nausea, I went over to the closet and looked through the gowns and women's clothing we had hung there. Some of these clothes had been worn by girls that we had already murdered. Some were new. Turnskins like to make a big production of the first night of a girl's capture. We get them dressed up and go through a whole ceremony that is purely a mockery of a Christian wedding. It's a night of pure terror for the girls and a hilarious parody of normalcy to us. I looked through the red dresses that were hung in the closet. They were not really dresses, just red silk nighties. It would be the closest Iris would ever get to a bridal gown. The thought made a wave of pity rush over me.

There was another bang. Iris screamed again, her voice shrill and quivering with a mixture of pain and terror.

I snatched the largest one with a lacy detail off its wire hanger before hesitantly making my way back to the bathroom. My feet felt like led bricks. When I got there, Iris was standing in front of the sink, shivering, while Boaz yanked a comb through her hair, harshly tugging at the knots until Iris' head was jerked back. Boaz's free hand wrapped around her throat, his fingers groping at her skin.

"Just let me go." Iris said, her voice only slightly wavering. I was surprised by her calmness; usually the girls are screaming or crying too much to speak by this point. "I swear to god, I won't say anything to nobody. You can just take me back to town and I'll pretend like none of this ever happened. You can do the same. I mean, you're in a lot of trouble for taking me, right?" She watched him out the corner of her eye, not flinching even as he kissed the nape of her neck and smiled grotesquely against her flesh, letting her feel his teeth's growing sharpness.

"You think I care?" Boaz whispered huskily. "They can beat me up all they like, but I know they're not going to fucking _kill_ me. I can do whatever I like. I may get some heat about it later, but I'll still get what I want. And taking you, I think will be well worth anything they can dish out." He tugged the comb through a particularly bad knot, making a curse word burst from her lips at the sudden pain. On impulse, she swatted at him and tried to shove him away from her. My brother cackled; a pleasured grin spread across his face. "Oh, I ain't ever letting you go, Girlie." He grabbed a hold of her wrists and forced a kiss on her already bruised lips then threw her on the ground again. Not wanting to be in such a vulnerable position, she quickly scrambled to get back up to her feet, but Boaz pressed his boot down on her back, pressing her hard into the white tile beneath her. He sneered at her, his facial bones shifting beneath his taunt human skin. "Come hell or high water, you're staying right here with me."

As I stood behind him, I could see a portion of his scar, the seam for his skin jutting up from beneath his shirt collar. It seemed to be getting pulled apart. There were spaces torn between the two folds of skin and his wolf's grey fur was peeking out.

"Boaz." I interrupted. I grabbed him by the shoulder and jerked him so that he had to look at me.

"What?" He rasped, the rearranging bones flattening back into place. His glowing eyes glared at me with annoyance.

I held up the frilly scrap of clothing. "Here's her gown." I said, tossing it to him. "Stop messing with her. You have to take her to Carl and dad first. Afterwards, you can do… whatever you want with her." I swallowed hard. My eyes drifted down to where Iris was still being crushed against the floor. She was watching us, her eyes dilated and bouncing around in frantic panic.

"I swear it's no fun around here." He huffed, taking his boot off her back. She gasped, sucking in air with a painful sound. She lifted herself on her arms and he grabbed her and yanked her up the rest of the way. "Put it on." He ordered, putting it into her hands.

Iris obediently shrugged the gown on. It was a bit too small through the bust, but otherwise, it fit well enough. She self-consciously tugged down on the short skirt. "Can I have some underwear, please?" She asked her voice soft.

Boaz opened his mouth to say something obscene, but I cut him off, not wanting to upset her any more than necessary. What was coming was bad enough without telling her outright what was going to happen to her. "Sure. Boaz, go grab her some, will ya? I'll stay here and dry her hair."

He started to protest, wanting to be there for every detail of her preparation so that he could torment her more, but he eventually relented and left us alone.

I turned on the hair dryer on low so that I could hear if Boaz was coming back. I was as gentle as possible with her. There were already wounds all over her scalp where Boaz had pulled her hair out by the root. I tried not to glance up into the mirror too much. I could see her face reflected there, already bruised and deathly pale. She was biting at her lips nervously, but she wasn't crying. Her eyes were stuck on my reflection. She was studying me as if I were a difficult equation she was trying to figure out. "What's wrong? Aren't you going to help your brother beat the crap out of me?" She asked, her words stinging my skin like wasps.

"I'm not like my brother." I replied. Satisfied that her hair was nice and dry, I set the blow dryer aside. Picking up the brush, I carefully pulled it through her blond tresses, taking care not to tug too much on any tangles.

"Bull shit." She spat beneath her breath. "You helped him bring me here."

"I didn't want him to take you at all."

"Well you did a great job stopping him. You just sat in the jeep, not doing a god damned thing. You didn't even try to warn me. You sat there and watched, just like you stood there and watched him just then." She hissed at me with narrowed, accusatory eyes. "Stop fooling yourself. You're no better than him."

"Maybe I'm not." I shrugged, feeling miserable. I couldn't look at her anymore. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry this is happening to you."

"Go fuck yourself." She muttered. In what felt like only a millisecond, she had sprung for the hair dryer and yanked it from its plug. She swung it as hard as she could into the mirror, shattering it. She grabbed a piece of jagged glass and leapt at me. She knocked me to the ground and straddled me as she brought the sharp glass down into my face.

I luckily had a hold of her hands and was able to keep the glass at bay, but her adrenalin was pumping and I was still weak from the gunshot wound and unwilling to let my wolf take over. With each breath, the glass seemed to get closer and closer to my left eye. She screeched into my face, a mad, feral scream, like a cornered animal. Her angry tears wet my face as the glass came within inches of my pupil.

There was a loud bang as Boaz burst back into the room. He knocked Iris off of me and pinned her to the ground next to me with his hands wrapped around her throat. He squeezed it, choking her and she flailed desperately, fighting to stay conscious. She stabbed the glass into his hand. It hurt him enough that he had to let her go. She broke free and bolted out of the bathroom and out of the Red's Cabin.

Boaz let out a murderous roar as he stood, holding his wounded hand and glaring furiously at the open front door. The door I had stupidly not bothered to lock behind me. His skin peeled away easily. He chased after her at full speed, shreds of his skin flying through the air behind him.

I stood in the doorway, gripping my throbbing shoulder, watching Iris run for her life, my brother hot on her heels. I could feel the warm wetness of blood, oozing through my fingers. The wound had reopened, but it didn't matter. I couldn't have cared less. The pain I was feeling at that moment was nothing compared to the punishment my family had in store for that crazy girl. And I'd be expected to help dish it out.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

She ran as fast as she could. Her blond hair whipped back from her head in a writhing, tangled mess. She leapt over a woodpile by the fire pit and nearly lost her footing when she landed, her feet almost going out beneath her. She stumbled for a second and scraped her knee on one of the logs. She didn't miss a beat. As soon as her feet were back under her, she took off again, all the while blood dripped from the wound. The shed blood scented the air like perfume. It urged my brother to run faster, sent hunger pains coursing through our bellies.

I slumped to my knees outside the Red's cabin. Behind me, the Reds stood in the doorway, watching me bleed. They stared at me with hate filled eyes and gleeful smiles, each of them hoping, preying I'd die. They wouldn't be able to get away, even if I did, but that didn't matter. They just wanted to see one of us suffer, see that we were mortal and not untouchable gods.

Iris continued to run. Sticks, briars and pine cones stabbed into the soles of her feet, but she never slowed. Her face was flushed red and streaked with sweat and tears. Her breath came in painful gasps. She looked back, over her shoulder and let out a cry. Boaz' silver and white figure was following her in a quick trot; his blue eyes shown through the dim evening light with evil intent. She picked up her pace. Boaz slowed.

My blood freely flowed through my fingers, saturating my clothes and pooling around me. I collapsed onto the ground and rested my face in the warm red puddle. Sarah approached me slowly, dragging her chain behind her until it grew taunt and she could go no further. She knelt beside me and loomed over my paling face. She touched my wound with her small hand and pressed. Pressed hard and dug her nails into the flesh.

Iris finally reached the chain link fence that surrounded the compound. She had already begun to climb it when she finally noticed the barbed wire that looped around its top. She clung to the fence a moment, staring blankly at the barbed wire, silently weighing her options. Either she gave up and let Boaz destroy her or disembowel herself trying to go home.

I screamed at the terrible pain, unable to hold it in. Sarah's smile widened. Behind her, Melanie began to laugh. She had never done anything but cry since Carl captured her, but now she laughed in a high pitched cackle, like a crazy person off their meds. Sarah scraped her fingers across the wound, tugging the remaining stitches until they had all snapped, leaving the wound wide open. I screamed again and grabbed at her arm, my fingers clawing at her shirt sleeve. I tried to call the wolf forward, in a desperate attempt to save myself from the Red's vengeful hands. But he did not come. I could not hear him. In my mind, I saw him there in the mental cage. Sitting. Grinning. He made no move to free himself. He never even said a word. I couldn't change. I was trapped.

"How does it feel, being ripped apart?" asked Sarah, her voice husky with pleasure. Melanie stepped up and, still laughing hysterically, she stomped her foot against my ribs. I was screaming in agony, could hardly catch my breath as the Reds clawed at my skin and jumped on my chest. I jolted as another bone snapped beneath Melanie's feet. Still, I had to watch. I had to know what Iris' choice would be. Would she rather die than face my brother's madness or would she give in to fate just like Mom?

Iris clung to the fence, barely a step above the ground. Boaz stood just behind her, between his and Trevor's cabin and the butchering shed. What was he doing? I wondered. She was right there. All he had to do was grab her. Then I realized, as I studied his wide eyed expression and wagging tale, he was just as curious as I was. Iris' sudden movement was our answer. She took hold of the links above her and hoisted herself up, towards the barbed wire.

She chose death. I smiled happily at her choice. _Good girl._ I thought, feeling my limbs go numb. _Too bad it's way too late._ Boaz leapt forward and bit meekly at her side. She screamed at the sharp pain and let go of the fence.

There was a bang from Carl's cabin and the rustle of leaves under padded paws. My vision was dimming, but I could vaguely see three wolves bounding out of it, their faces twisted with hellish snarls. Trevor and Carl ran to help Boaz subdue Iris. He could have already done it himself, but he was still toying with her, letting her get up and scramble around a little, before grabbing her with his teeth again and throwing her back on the ground.

My dad was on top of Sarah before I knew it, biting at her and digging claws into her soft, pliable flesh. She screamed louder than I did when he tore the meat from her cheek and swallowed it whole. Her blood ran out of her like a flood and mixed with my own. "How does it feel to be ripped apart?" I asked the dying girl, all too happy to see her eyes quickly turning milky.

I passed out then, with Melanie's laughter and the crunching of Sarah's bones still ringing in my ears.

When I woke up again, I'd lost three days of my life. Something I was both angry and happy about. The wolf was disappointed he wasn't able to be there for Iris' punishment, the human part of me, the part that was Eli, was relieved that I didn't have to help them hurt her, despite what she had done to me; although, I had the sinking feeling that this reprieve would not last long. Judging by the screams I could still hear, echoing across the compound, Boaz was no wear near done initiating her into our little family.

"You're up!" Wyatt gasped as he elbowed his way through the door with a trey of food. He quickly plopped the trey down on my night stand and swiveled back into the hall. "Eli's awake!" He announced. At once my Dad rushed into the doorway.

He stood there, staring at me. He let out a breath and a look of relief softened his harsh features. He must have been holding that breath for days. "Eli." He said my name softly. His smile was no more than a slight curve to his lips. "I'm glad you're awake. We…Carl said you might not…" He stuffed his meaty hands in his pockets and looked away from me like he found looking at me awkward. "You weren't breathing when I finally got Sarah off of you. I thought they had killed you for sure."

Wyatt sat at the end of my bed. He swung his feet off the edge playfully. I watched them kick, two and fro, a memory of Iris' flailing limbs passing momentarily through my mind. I shoved it away, buried it deep, just as quickly as it had come. "Dad said your broken ribs punctured your lung. He didn't think you'd live through the night." He smiled warmly. "I'm glad he was wrong." Looking at him, you wouldn't think that Wyatt was any different from a human child. At the moment, that wasn't too far from the truth. He couldn't shed his skin fully yet. It would be another year or so before that happened. He had never helped with the Red hunts, never chased a girl down, and had never torn one to shreds. That would soon change and his innocence would be destroyed just like theirs. I turned my head away, not able to stand looking at him any more due to the jealousy that was suddenly stinging my insides. If I had run away before I could shed the skin, would it have been easier to pretend I were human?

Dad laid his hand on top of Wyatt's mop of black hair. "Go get your dad. He'll want to look Eli over to be sure he's really okay." Wyatt nodded and quickly left, practically skipping down the hallway.

Dad took his place at the end of my bed. He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He ran his fingers through his hair, in the way he does when he's worried. I started to fiddle with some sort of tube that was lying across my face and he quickly stopped me, grabbing my hands and pushing them down at my sides. "That's your oxygen. Leave it alone. You'll be on that a couple more days, probably." He sighed again, ran his hands through his hair and tugged at it in frustration. "Why the hell didn't you change? Why did you let them do that to you? They were going to kill you, Eli. Is that what you wanted?"

"No." I shook my head. My voice was very weak, barely more than a whisper. My father leaned in closer so he could hear me. "I couldn't. I didn't hear the wolf talking to me, like I usually do. I didn't even feel him moving."

"Hmm." Dad muttered, eying me and wincing when his gaze crawled over the blue and purple bruises that peeked over the top of the blankets. "Maybe it was because you were already weak?"

"Maybe." I agreed, letting out a rattling breath. I didn't want to tell him what I really thought. Maybe the wolf was the one that wanted me to die. I was useless to him anyway.

Carl came in soon after. He praised me for fighting through and reassured my dad that I'd probably make it now that I had regained consciousness. Dad, Carl, Wyatt and I all sat around my room, talking for a long while. I mostly listened, but I was happy for their company. They didn't talk about the Reds or about what had happened. Instead they discussed a trip to Myrtle Beach, something that Wyatt had been begging for for years. We rarely went on vacations. I could remember only one trip to the beach when I was seven. We hadn't gone on a trip since, so Wyatt had never really been anywhere. They had always told him no before, but it looked like they were finally at least considering it. I hoped they would take him. He needed at least one happy memory.

"We'll let you rest now. Go ahead and eat." Dad said, gently patting my back before following my uncle and cousin out the door. I turned to my now lukewarm meal. It was some sort of stew. I spooned through the dark broth. There were potatoes carrots, onions and rice. Chunks of meat floated on the top here and there. Stew beef. I thought, happily. It was one of my favorites so I eagerly took a bite. I stopped at the first spoonful. A part of me wanted to throw it back up at first, but with each chew, the flavor grew all the more delicious. It wasn't beef. It tasted vaguely of pork, but was far sweeter, tenderer. It was a flavor that I knew well. I had eaten it many times before. It was human. A girl named Sarah. I picked back up my spoon and ate heartily.

I was able to get off the oxygen by the end of the week. A couple of days after that, I was feeling well enough to venture out of our cabin. The days of bed rest had done me good. The gunshot wound had healed nearly completely, and my ribs were well on their way. They however, were still plenty sore. I stepped gingerly out onto our front porch. I leant against the railing, looking out across the compound, trying to guess where everyone was. I couldn't hear Iris screaming anymore, so Boaz was most likely not in the Reds' cabin. Just across from me, I could see Carl tossing a baseball back and forth with Wyatt, both of them grinning happily like a normal father and son, like people who didn't have women chained up on their property. Trevor was sitting in an old beach chair by the fire pit. He seemed to be burning some trash. Every now and then, he tossed another trash bag into the flames. I wondered, with a deep frown, which one had bloody clothes in it. My dad was at the butchering shed, power washing Sarah's blood away from the floor and walls. Nearby, in a wheelbarrow, were heaped the hollowed remnants of her corpse. Her mauled face sat on top of the pile of skin and limbs, her glassy eyes gazing unblinkingly up at the clouds that passed overhead, like the sky offered her the freedom that she would never again experience on earth. As I looked at her bloody, dismembered body, my mouth watered at the memory of her taste. I turned away from the sight, feeling ashamed. She may have tried to take my life, but we took hers' first.

I trudged across the way to the fire pit, wanting nothing more than to watch something burn. "How are you feeling?" Trevor asked, smiling up at me.

"Been better." I mumbled, drawing my dark blue flannel shirt tighter across my chest. The autumn air was chilly.

"I'll grab you a chair." Trevor said. He got up and retrieved another beach chair from a tool shed. This one was thankfully taller than the one he was using, so I wouldn't have to bend too much to sit down. I took my seat beside him and before he sat back down, he went to his cooler to get us some drinks. "Beer?" He asked, holding up a nice tall can. I must have made a face because he started to laugh and tossed the beer back in. "Coke it is then." He gave me my soda and opened up a beer for himself. We sat and sipped in silence, watching the black trash bags in the pit melt away from their contents, letting it spill out over the ashes. The smallest bag held Sarah's bloody shirt, its fabric all torn to shreds.

"Where's Boaz?" I asked, off offhandedly. I didn't really care where he was. I just wanted to have something to talk about, something to end the silence that had fallen between my elder brother and I. "I don't hear Iris screaming anymore."

"Yeah, she…stopped." Trevor took another sip of his beer. "He went to town, said he needed to pick up something for Carl."

"He didn't take you with him?" I asked, surprised to say the least. The twins were usually joined at the hip. Trevor was Boaz's shadow. It was strange to see them separated by so many miles.

Trevor's eyes softened as he looked away from the fire. His fingers started to fiddle with the tab on his beer can. "He's been preoccupied with Iris. He's barely talked to me since we took her." He ran his hands through his hair worriedly, just like our father always did. "It's not that I'm jealous or anything. In fact, I'm thankful to have a break from him. Lately…he's been scaring me. I mean more than usual. He hasn't acted completely right since our blooding, but it's gotten worse since we started 'practicing.'"

"You've noticed it too then? That strange look he gets when he's hurting them." I breathed excitedly, grateful not to be the only one. "It's like he gets off on it." I grit my teeth at memories of Iris' screams and cries for mercy.

Trevor nodded quietly. "Don't we all?" He smiled sadly. "None of us are innocent by any means, but Boaz is different. He didn't want to take Iris because of some breeding instinct. He took her because he wanted to inflict pain on someone. She was just unlucky enough to get his attention." His eyes lifted up to me, met my own. He looked so much like Boaz. Nothing, not even the way he parted his hair was any different from his twin, but they were always easy to tell apart. There was an ever present fear in Trevor's eyes, an emotion I've never seen reflected in Boaz's. Boaz's eyes always seemed empty. He took a big swig of his drink. "You were lucky you missed out on the festivities the other night. That…was not a pretty sight." He shook his head like he was trying to clear away evil, disturbing thoughts.

I swallowed hard, feeling bile rise in my throat. Trevor and I had already done some awful things; we'd watched the elders do even worse things. We'd helped them. What in the world could Boaz have done to make Trevor pale at the very thought of it? I started to ask, but thought better of it. My mouth slammed shut. It was better not to know.

"So dad told me what you said…about not being able to change that night." Trevor began thoughtfully. He was changing the subject. He looked at me knowingly with a slightly pitying expression. "You're fighting it, aren't you?"

I bit at the inside of my cheek, tasted blood. "Is it that obvious?" I asked, watching the writhing flames before us. "I…don't like what I am, Trevor. I don't even like _who_ I am. I'm not like any of you."

"Oh, I know what your problem is. You want to be human. But you're not a human." Trevor answered. "You'll never _be_ human, Eli. Even if you left and turned your backs on all of us, you'd still be a Turnskin. Nothing will change that. You'd always have those urges. The ones that make you want to change and hunt and kill. They'll always be there. You're wasting your time, fighting yourself like you are."

"God, you sound just like Dad." I chuckled bitterly, shaking my head.

"Well he's right."

"You don't understand. I still remember my mom. I know what she went through. I don't want to destroy someone else the way dad destroyed her." My voice sounded angrier than I had intended it to.

Trevor's face fell. He looked almost hurt. He leant back in his chair and kicked at the ashes, sending sparks flying through the air. "You think you're the only one that remembers Trisha?" He asked, his voice soft, like he was afraid someone would hear. "I was nine when she died. I can remember more about her than even you can. I used to spend a lot of time in the Reds' cabin. I was supposed to be guarding them, but mostly I just went there to be with people who didn't have the same face as me. Most of them were afraid of me, but Trisha was always nice. She didn't run from me. Instead, she treated me like her own kid. We'd play games and she'd tell me stories that she made up off the top of her head. She treated me no different than she treated you. She may not have been my real mother, but she was closest thing I've ever had to one. I miss her too; just as much as you do. But I still have to face the fact that I'm my father's son. I can't avoid it. None of us can. Trisha knew that. She knew what both of us were, but she cared about us anyway." He sighed heavily. "You've got to stop thinking that you're somehow better than us, Eli, like you're some entirely different species just because dad kept Trisha longer; because, in the end, if you catch a Red, you'll _destroy_ her just like all the rest of us."

"I don't think I'm better than you." I said in total denial.

"Sure you do." Trevor shrugged. "You think you're more human than us, that we're the monsters and you're not. You're like those characters in those werewolf movies that get bit and are trying to fight changing, to hold on to whatever scrap of humanity they have left. Except you have no humanity to hold on to. The only thing our mothers determine is what our human skin will look like. Everything else comes from our fathers. There's not a drop of human blood in you, Eli."

There was nothing I could say to deny it. "Does it get easier after the blooding?" I asked quietly. If everything he said was true, if there was no way to avoid becoming my father, then I at least wanted assurance that I'd someday have some semblance of peace about it.

"Yeah," said Trevor. "Every kill makes it a little easier. Once you've killed one, there's not much reason to hold back anymore. What's one more, right?" Trevor smirked at me. Pity shone in in his eyes once more. "I guess, what I've been trying to say is that you shouldn't try so hard to be something that you're not. It's only going to end up getting you hurt or killed, just like the other day. Let the changes happen. Let the wolf have his way. You'll be happier."

"Are you happy?" The words were out my mouth before my brain could stop them.

Trevor chewed at his cheek. His eyes drifted away from me to the ground. He bowed his head as he took another gulp of his beer. "Boaz seems to be." He finally answered half-heartedly. There was a lot more that he wanted to tell, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. The words were caught in his throat. He kept drinking his beer as if the golden liquid would dislodge them.

"I didn't ask you if Boaz was happy. I asked if you were." I prodded him.

I never would get my answer. The sound of the Jeep rolling back into the driveway put an end to our conversation. Trevor got up without a word, unable to resist returning to his twin's side. I followed him, not wanting to leave his'.

"Boaz," Trevor called out as we approached him. Boaz gave a relieved smile at Trevor's approach. "You're back already? What did Carl send you to get?" Trevor asked.

He wasn't prepared for the answer. Boaz reached into the pocket of his jean jacket and showed us his quarry. A pregnancy test.

Trevor and I both sucked in a breath.

"Melanie's showing the signs. Carl wanted to be sure she wasn't before we dealt with her." He said calmly, like he was explaining a very easy math problem.

"Carl wants to kill her? Why? She hasn't been here that long." I asked, still staring dumbfounded at the test in his hand. Melanie, poor stupid, crazy Melanie…

"Cuz she used your chest as a trampoline, dummy." Boaz laughed. "Dad wanted to kill her too, but since there's the possibility that she might be pregnant, Carl talked him into waiting. For once I agreed with him." He stuffed it back into his pocket and started walking towards the Reds' cabin. "Come on, he's waiting for me."

Trevor and I followed Boaz obediently, each of us equally as curious as to whether or not the pack was about to gain another member. Carl was already inside. He was sitting with Wyatt at the card table, eating popcorn out of a ceramic bowl. They had set up a small television and were watching an old Disney movie_, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves_. Dad dragged a bound a gagged Melanie out of a back room just as the evil queen transformed into the ugly hag. Her evil cackle reverberated through the small cabin.

Carl got up from the table and came to talk quietly with Boaz. "Did you have any trouble getting it?" He asked in a whisper.

"Nah," Boaz shrugged. "While Mrs. Carney was busy, I slipped it in my pocket and was out the door without her noticing a thing." He handed Carl the little white stick and the elders dragged her back into the bathroom.

"Where's Iris?" I asked after a long time of sitting in silence. The main room was empty, save for Wyatt, who was still enthralled with his movie.

"Sleeping," said Boaz. He jumped over the counter and scoured through the cabinets and fridge for something to eat. "Could you go wake her up, Eli. I'm fixing her something to eat. She hasn't in a while." Boaz's smirk spread into a smile. Sharp teeth gleamed.

Trevor gave me a sympathetic nod. I could tell by the look in his eyes and the deep set of his frown that I wouldn't like what I would see when I went back there. My steps were slow and hesitant. I bent over, holding my ribs, trying to make it seem like it was my pain that made each step torturous and not my fear over what I might see and how the wolf may react. I opened the door and nearly gagged.

Iris lay on the bed in the fetal position. She wore the ripped and tattered remnants of the red gown. Not much was there anymore. Every inch of her skin bore bruises, teeth and claw marks. Scratches crisscrossed over her legs and arms. The wounds were not very deep. Boaz had just pressed hard enough to draw blood. But what was most disturbing was how swollen and battered Iris' face was. Her eyes were swollen nearly shut. Blood oozed from both a busted lip and a broken nose. Her blond hair was now stained the same shade of red as her gown with all the dried blood. She was unrecognizable.

I was horrified. Usually, we tried not to injure them to this sort of extent. After all, their health was important if they were to produce Turnskin children. However, I understood why he'd done it and it wasn't just because he enjoyed causing her pain. He was making her an example. This is what would happen to you if you tried to run. You either get beaten to within an inch of your life or you end up in a stew.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Iris made a move to lift herself up, but couldn't. She fell back down into the mattress, far too weak to do much of anything. I grit my sharpening teeth as the wolf began to mumble incoherently. "_Look! Look! Look!" _He cried, awed and inspired by Boaz's effortless skill. _"This is what you should do! This is how you break them!"_

Her bloodshot eyes watched me intently through the narrow cracks between her swollen eyelids. Those eyes were accusing, demanding, questioning. Why had we done this to her? What sin had she committed to deserve it? Did my mom ever look at my father this way? I wondered, feeling sick to my stomach.

I bolted.

I flew from the cabin. Boaz called after me in surprise, "What's wrong?" He shouted.

He started to come after me, but Trevor stopped him, grabbing him by his shirt. "Let him go. He needs to be by himself a while." There was nothing but pity in his voice. "It seems he's finally coming to terms."

Yes. To be by myself, alone, without any of my fellow monsters around me was exactly what I needed, what I wanted and pined for. I ran to the cabin I shared with Dad and quickly snatched up a duffle bag I had thrown in the back of my closet. I chucked random clothing into it, not caring what exactly it was. I probably had several shirts in there and no underwear. I didn't know and I didn't slow down to check. When it was full to bursting, I zipped it closed with some effort.

Was this really what I wanted? I wondered. Could I really leave and never come back? I braced my arms on my dresser, needing to catch my breath. There was the picture of my mother laying face up on the pile of clothes that still hadn't been put away. She smiled up at me, but her eyes no longer looked happy or proud of the toddler in her arms. Her hold on her child was no longer loving. I pictured those arms, squeezing the little boy too tightly, forcing the breath from his lungs and his ribs giving way beneath the pressure. An awful scream ripped through me as I took the picture frame and threw it against the nearest wall. The frame shattered into tiny glass shards.

A pitiful whine escaped my lips. Why had I lied to myself for so long? Why had my brother lied? My mother couldn't have loved me or Trevor. How could a Red, who had endured everything that my father had done to her, who had seen girls come and then suddenly disappear, possibly love the children that she knew would do the exact same things one day? How could she have anything but disgust in her heart towards me?

It was a stupid, hopeful dream and I was sick of believing it. I prayed to God silently, knowing that it was useless. If there was a God, he certainly wouldn't listen to my prayers. Please, either let the scar completely heal and disappear from my spine or let me become as unremorseful as my brothers. At least then I would have no doubt as to what I was and be spared these pitiful illusions of grandeur. Let me wake up.

As my eyes reopened, I looked up into the mirror before me. Staring back at me was an eighteen year old man with messy dark hair and an unshaven face. His cheeks were gaunt and his skin had a deathly pallor. His moss green eyes were like those of a panicked animal. My reflection suddenly grinned, showing its sharp, canine like teeth. The green eyes flashed with nocturnal eye-shine. I blinked, wanting the illusion to disappear, but when I looked again, the wolf's shaggy face was there, glaring at me. He tilted his head back and howled. I took a clock from the dresser and smashed the mirror, killing the reflected horror.

I took my dad's old truck. It sputtered and groaned as I made my way down the mountain. I hadn't really planned anything out. All I knew was that I needed to put some distance between me and the compound and get as far away from my kin as I could possibly get. I loved them. Despite everything, I would miss them all terribly, even Boaz. But I also knew that if I really wanted to have a decent life, I could never see them again.

Night had begun to fall by the time I reached Pinewood. The sky had turned from grey-blue to bands of rich oranges, pinks and reds. On the horizon, over the peaks of the mountains, foreboding clouds were rolling in. I was tired and emotionally drained. My ribs were bothering me again. My last Ibuprofen had worn off ages ago. I decided to stop at a local Pinewood diner, called Magpie's for some coffee and maybe a bite to eat. I felt safe stopping because it would probably be the next morning before the others seriously thought something was wrong. I had had freak outs like this before, although never this bad. They would give me a few hours to clear my head before they came looking for me.

I trudged into the diner. The cook waved at me through the pickup window and a waitress smiled as I entered. I waved and smiled politely back then slipped into a booth at the back of the diner. Magpie's was a homey place. It wasn't very big and the food wasn't fancy or even all that great, but it was always filled with locals. A couple of older men were sitting at the bar at the front, sipping coffee and eating the diner's famous apple pies and cobblers. A group of teenagers were sitting around at one of the tables that ran down the center of the room. The three boys and two girls were chit chatting about a horror movie they had just come back from seeing at the theater. They were dressed mostly in black with their lips and nails painted the same color. My attention was drawn to one of the girls. She smiled with black-purplish lips that made her look like a corpse and opened a sugar packet. Her nails were painted in a pattern of red and black chipped nail polish.

My attention was thankfully pulled away from the girl when the waitress came for my order. She was an older lady with curled hair that was once blond, but which had turned nearly white. She wore too much blush and her mascara made her eyelashes look clumped together, but she was very friendly. "What can I get ya, hun?" She asked with the voice of a lifelong smoker. I could smell the strong scent of tobacco on her breath.

"I'll have a cup of coffee and a slice of blueberry pie." I ordered. The woman nodded with a smile and jotted down my order on a small pad of paper. It hadn't even been a moment since she left the table side before Little Red Riding Hood came strolling in.

Dinah walked in. Her red coat hung on her petite frame over a pair of distressed jeans and a concert tee with the name and logo of some metal band I'd never heard of on the front. Her two tone hair was twisted in a messy braid over her shoulder.

I held my breath as I watched her. She hadn't seen me yet. She walked on to the counter, sat on one of the stools and put in an order, and slid a twenty across the bar to the waitress.

_Maybe I can slip out real fast. _I thought, shooting wild glances at the only exit. I made a quick move to get up from my booth, but my ribs gave a loud protest. They made a cracking sound and pain radiated through my chest. I bit my tongue to keep from crying out. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.

It was too late. The Turnskin hunter glanced over her shoulder and her minty eyes shot right to me. Their icy glare carved through my pale hide. Her lips pulled down into a scowl as she left the counter and began her approach. I decided, against my better judgment, to stay where I was. She couldn't shoot my brains out here, not with so many witnesses around.

"Hi, Eli," Dinah painted on a fake smile. "Mind if I join you for a minute?" Her voice sounded too kind, too sweet…sickeningly sweet.

"Sure, Darlin'," I replied, mimicking her tone. I patted the seat beside me. "You can sit right here next to me." My mouth spread into a mocking grin. "Or would you find it more comfortable in my lap?"

She pursed her lips, her eyes stabbing me with ice picks. "Prick." She mumbled beneath her breath. She slid into the seat, drawing as close to me as humanly possible without crawling on top of me. I found myself having to hold my breath again, trying desperately not to smell her scent, lest my teeth and nails grow any sharper. "What are you doing here? Out for another hunt?" The girl whispered breathily. I stared at her red mouth, watching as her soft lips moved to form words. I heard a faint click and felt a sharp pain in my side. I glanced down at the space between us. That was when I realized she was holding a switchblade against my stomach. The point of the knife had already pierced my shirt.

"What if I am? Are you going to gut me right here in front of everyone?" I challenged her, my tired eyes shifting to meet hers. "They lynch murderers around here."

"I can always claim self-defense." She retorted.

"I've grown up here. These people know me, know my family. You, you're a stranger. Whose side do you think they'll take? Even if they don't lynch you, my brothers would be happy to oblige and you certainly wouldn't want Boaz to get a hold of a pretty girl like you." I saw her recognition at my words. She remembered Boaz. He'd be hard to forget. "Put your toy away, Little Red. I'm not hunting. I'm leaving."

My skin gave a sigh of relief as the pressure of the blade lessened. She folded the knife back up and slid it into her pocket. "And where exactly are you headed?" She asked quietly. Some people at the bar were looking at us, so she began playing the role of the dopey eyed love bird. She curled herself into my side, rested her head on my shoulder.

I draped my arm around her, squeezed her tight. "Don't know. Don't really care. All that I know for certain is that I have to get away from my family. I don't want to ever be like them."

"You are like them. You're a Turnskin. Hurting and killing helpless girls is what you do." Dinah whispered. Her voice was venomous.

"If only all we did was kill them." I replied, watching quietly as her face drained of color.

"What do you mean?" She asked, her eyes widening. "What the hell do you do to them?"

A large group of people suddenly entered the dinner, interrupting our conversation, men in uniform, some in the dark blue of the police and others in the tan and brown of the Sheriff's Department. There were several older men I recognized as Pinewood residents, dressed in orange hunting vests. There were also three strangers among them, a middle aged man, a woman and a young girl. They stood around talking with Sheriff Loris. The man was stern faced, arguing with the sheriff, pleading with him to let him search a little more. The woman cried endlessly, sobbing into her hands. The little girl, whose blond hair was twisted into a pair of innocent, looking pigtails, looked towards me, stared at me with cold hazel eyes, as if she knew every sin I'd ever committed.

"You can't end the search now! She's already been out there for days! She'll die of exposure before you idiots find her!" The man pleaded, his face twisted in grief and anger.

The sheriff held his hands up defensively. "Sir, we're doing all we can, but we can't search those woods in weather like this. The ground is too uneven. People could injure themselves. We'll pick back up the search first thing in the morning. Why don't you take your wife and daughter back to your cabin? Try to get some sleep."

The man's mouth clamped shut for a moment. He glared at Sherriff Loris through pain filled eyes. Tears fell down his ruddy cheeks. "Do you have any children, Sherriff?" He asked, his bottom lip quivering as he fought the need to wail in despair.

Andrew Loris tore his eyes away from the pitiful man, unable to take seeing that god awful misery for another moment. "I have a son and daughter. My girl's almost Iris' age."

"If your little girl disappeared out there, would you want people to ever stop looking for her, even for just a minute? Could you let yourself sleep without knowing where she was?" A painful sob erupted from Iris' father's barrel chest. "God damn it, look at me!" He grabbed Loris' shoulder, shook him, forced him to meet his eyes again to watch the tears that now poured freely in a stream down his weary, gaunt face. "I'm the one that made her go on that errand. If I'd just gone myself, she'd be safe. Now whatever happens to her is my fault. Would you be able to forgive yourself if your daughter died because you were too lazy to go to the store yourself?"

Loris rubbed his hand across the bristle along his jaw. His grey-green eyes found me sitting at the back of the dinner, slouched in the booth with my arm around Dinah. His jaw set and I knew I was in trouble. "No, sir, I wouldn't." He finally replied. He patted the distraught father on his shoulder reassuringly. "I promise I will do whatever I can to bring her home. You have my word."

Iris' family didn't seem to put much stock in the sheriff's words, but they backed off and retreated back out into the chilly, rainy night. They'd return to their empty cabin in the woods, sit by the phone and pray that their lost daughter would somehow find her way home. But I knew she wouldn't. Boaz has a pretty strong grip.

When they were gone, the sheriff slowly approached our table. He tilted his wide brimmed hat more over his brow, casting his troubled face in shadows. "Eli. I've been meaning to talk with you. Do you have a minute?" He asked, rubbing at his bristly chin again.

"I'm on a date with my girlfriend right now. Can it wait?" I flashed him a smug look, squeezed Dinah's shoulder tighter.

The sheriff frowned at me. His hand came to rest on the holster for his gun. He obviously didn't like the look in my eyes. Andrew Loris is one of the few people around who know what Roan men are capable of. To me he wasn't just Pinewood's Sherriff. He was my uncle. "I'm afraid it can't. Dinah?" His eyes shifted to Red Riding Hood. "You can do better than this guy. You best get back to your granny's house. I'll call her and let her know you're on your way."

Dinah sighed, as if very annoyed at the interruption. She got up from the table, grabbed her take out order from the front counter and stormed out of the diner.

Andrew slid into the seat across from me, linked his fingers in front of him on the counter and we each locked our moss colored eyes with the other. "The guy working the register at the Pharmacy tells me that you and your brothers came into the store right after Iris the day she disappeared. He also tells me that you left with her. Care to elaborate?"

"It ain't got nothing to do with me." I slouched further in my seat, wishing I could turn into a snake and slither away.

My dear uncle Andrew took his standard issue pistol from his holster and laid it on the table, his finger stayed precariously perched on the trigger with the barrel of it pointed straight at me. _What was with everyone trying to kill me lately?_ I wondered with an exasperated huff.

Andrew smiled. His pearly teeth shined like the badge at his breast. "Oh, I think it does, Eli. You're eighteen now. Was she your blooding prey?"

I gave him a smile of my own, filled with sharp canine teeth. "You're not thinking of stirring up something with the Roans are ya, Uncle Andrew?" I sneered as I watched him flinch. The agony of grief flickered across his face momentarily. "We have an agreement, remember? You have a problem with it, I suggest taking it up with my dad." I leapt up from the booth, disregarding the pistol, knowing he was bluffing. Loris wouldn't shoot me. Even if we were alone out in the woods and no one would see it, he still wouldn't do it. He isn't stupid. Turning on the Roans has ramifications.

He grabbed my wrist as I tried to flee. "Wait, don't leave just yet." He pleaded. "I'll give you a ride home."

"I'm not going home. I've wanted to go solo for a while now and I finally got the guts to leave." I replied, my pinched face betraying the turmoil I felt stirring in my chest every time I looked at Andrew Loris, whose face was so similar to mine. Maybe I'd be a lot like him if my father hadn't been Henry Roan. Though, I can't say I'd want to be. He wasn't as saintly as the uniform made him look. He was actually a sinfully selfish man.

"Really? Where are you headed?" Andrew smirked knowingly at me when I shrugged in response. Even he could tell that this attempt most like would not succeed. This had been little more than a temper tantrum, like little kids threatening to run away when they're scolded. They pack their things, hide from their parents, but they rarely get much further than the drive way. "Let's get you home for today. You can run away some other time."

With some hesitation, I nodded, giving up on this attempt. I wasn't sure what Andrew was planning to do and the not knowing put an uneasiness in my stomach. If he threatened to indict Boaz on kidnapping, if he exposed us, he'd find himself in an unmarked grave right next to my mother. Or worse, we'd be the ones in the ground. I had to return with him, if only to be sure that he didn't do something stupid.

"We'll take your dad's truck. If the others see me putting you in the cruiser, it'll raise suspicion. I'll be with you shortly. I'm just going to get some coffee." said Andrew.

I left without any further arguments. I canceled my pie order on the way out and just got my coffee in a to-go cup. I was hoping that Dinah had gone home already, but I should have known that she'd be waiting for me. She was sitting on the hood of Dad's truck, disregarding the downpour around her as it drenched her red coat, turning it the color of dried blood.

Sipping at my coffee, I blatantly ignored her. I got into the truck. She swooped into the passenger seat before I could lock the door. "Please leave me alone. I'm not having the best day." I groaned, resting my pounding head on the steering wheel.

"Yeah well, I bet Iris isn't having the best day either." She hissed. She might as well have a forked tongue. "I'm not letting you leave here without giving me an explanation. You keep them? You don't just kill them and eat them?"

"Don't you think it's weird that there are no women in the Roan family?" I asked, not looking at her. My eyes were closed as I pictured each of my kin. Carl. Dad. Trevor. Boaz. Wyatt…my Grandfather. "There are no female Turnskins. We use human women to…reproduce."

"Oh my God!" She gasped, her face turning a sickly color. She clasped her hands over her mouth as she tried to keep her last meal down.

"We don't kill them all. Some we keep as…I guess you'd call them captive brides." I elaborated.

"Don't! Don't you dare call them that! The word "bride" makes it sound too pleasant! They're nothing more than sex slaves!" She screamed at me. Her hands were balled into fists and I thought she might actually punch me.

I watched her sadly, my head still on the steering wheel. Saying all of this out loud, watching her expression become more and more horrified, really put a new perspective on things. It showed me just how screwed up my life and my views were. I clasped my coffee cup in my hands, reveling in its warmth while the cold wind seeped through the door of the truck, wishing I could douse myself in the bowling liquid. "More like incubators. If this was just about sex, we'd keep them forever, but we don't. This is and has always been about breeding. Other packs may do it differently, but Carl has a rule that we only keep Reds until they've had one child or twins, as they case may be with Boaz and Trevor. Once the babies are weaned, they're killed just like the rest."

"Why? If you kept them longer, they could have several children a piece." She said, wrapping her arms around herself, as if she were about to shatter.

"It's his idea of mercy." I replied. I took a big gulp of my coffee. It was too hot and burned my tongue.

She made no reply to my last comment. She sat staring blankly at the trash that littered the floorboards, toying with the zipper of her red coat. "So that's what's happening to Iris now? You're holding her prisoner? Raping her?"

"She belongs to Boaz now." I replied.

She instantly stilled, horror freezing her to the bone. "And you helped him take her." She spat, looking at me with pure disdain.

"I didn't want him to take her." I breathed heavily. "We're not even supposed to keep Reds. That's a privilege that only our elders get. But Boaz was impatient. She caught his attention. She's his type; blonde, curvy and naïve. Once he made up his mind that he wanted to keep her, nothing we said or could have said would have made a difference."

The look in her eyes… it was like she was face to face with a rabid dog. Her pupils were like pinpoints. She gnashed her teeth together, grinding them in her effort to hold herself back. Her hand was at her pocket, fingering the switchblade through the denim of her jeans. Did she even see my human facade? Or was I always the wolf in her eyes? "Let me guess, you were a totally innocent bystander. You didn't help at all." She said through her teeth.

"I never said that!" A deadly growl echoed deep in my chest. I had to sit back a minute and take deep breaths to calm myself. I was afraid the skin might rip right off me if I didn't. "What would you have wanted me to do, Dinah? I can't turn on my brothers. They're not just my family, they're my pack. Do you have any idea what that means? I can't explain it. It's like I despise them and love them all at the same time. I may hate them for the things they do and for expecting me to do the same things, but I still love them. I want us to be happy and I want them to hate being a Turnskin as much as I do. I'd give anything to be human, but I can't change what I am any more than you can change the color of your hair. I can pretend to be human and you can dye your hair as much as you want, but it still doesn't change anything." I reached out and touched the ginger roots of her hair. "I'll always be a monster…" A small smile curved my lips. "And you'll always be a red head."

For the first time since the day we met, Dinah's features softened. She no longer glared at me with intense hatred, but with pity and maybe a tiny dash of understanding.

We both jumped in surprise when Sherriff Loris banged his hand against the door of the truck. He wrenched the door open and glowered unhappily at the two of us. "Dinah, I told you to go home." He grumbled. "Go on now. You don't need to be hanging out with any of those Roan boys. They're bad news."

"Yes sir." She mumbled. She pulled her hood back over her hair, gave me a slight smile. "I'll see you later, Eli."

She got out and the sheriff took the wheel as I took her place in the passenger seat. We drove back up the mountain in silence. I drank my coffee as I stared out the window, watching the rain pelt us, kind of hoping that the wind would just topple us off the side of the overlook.

"You don't have to worry about me arresting Boaz. I'll keep my mouth shut about you and your brothers being responsible and I'll plant some drugs on the pharmacy clerk. No one will trust his testimony after that. Just…tell me…is she still alive?"

"Yeah," I muttered. "Boaz is keeping her."

"The psychotic twin kept her? Jesus…" He squirmed in his seat, obviously uncomfortable with the thought.

"You can't have her back. It doesn't matter whose Red she is." I reminded him, gritting my teeth at his pained expression. Why the hell was he so troubled over Iris' fate? He had just lied to her grieving parents' faces and he had promised to help us cover up the fact that we were responsible. He had helped on many missing person cases through the years. "If you ask me, it's a little too late to be growing a conscience."

That's where the conversation ended. Neither of us dared speak a word until we were back behind the gates of the compound. As soon as I saw those familiar cabins, my heart sank. I was back, back behind those oppressive walls and within the clutches of my twisted pedigree. I could practically feel the noose tighten about my throat as my executioner, uncle Andrew, led me away to be hanged from my family tree.

The door of the main cabin opened and Carl walked out with my dad right behind him. He had probably smelt the sheriff coming before we were even half way up the mountain. My father looked pissed off. His thick arms were folded across his chest and his mouth was turned into a deep scowl. Carl, however, seemed unaffected by the unexpected arrival. He knew my uncle was not a stupid man. He had far too much to lose to start trouble with our pack.

"Andrew. What brings you here, old friend?" My dad asked in a mocking tone as Andrew and I got out of the truck.

"I thought I'd return your boy to you." said Andrew, masking his annoyance behind a stern poker face. "He was talking to the Carneys' granddaughter. I'd appreciate it if you and your people left that family be. They've already lost a daughter to you. I don't want them losing her too."

"You were hunting?" Dad couldn't hide his genuine surprise.

I reverted my attention to the mud and kept my mouth shut.

"I'd appreciate it if you kept your boys on a tighter leash, Henry. I know Boaz took Iris Mahoney." Andrew and Dad glared at each other. "He was sloppy about it too. Someone saw all three of them leaving the pharmacy with her the day she disappeared. I'll do what I can to redirect suspicion, but I can't guarantee that I can protect you forever."

"Duley noted. The boys were in the wrong when they took the girl. They did not have permission from us to be hunting in the first place. They've been reprimanded."

"You call letting Boaz keep the girl punishment?" Andrew spat.

Dad lunged for him. Andrew was lucky Carl grabbed a hold of him. "I suggest you stop concerning yourself with my kids and start worrying about your own" He growled.

"Get a grip, Henry! I'll handle this." Carl shouted and shoved him back. He turned back towards Andrew calmly. "Whether Boaz was in the wrong or not, Iris is a valuable resource. We could have made him kill her outright, but that seemed…wasteful."

"Whatever." Andrew shook his head, unconvinced. "There's something that I need to discuss with you. Do you mind if I come in for a minute?" He asked.

"There's nothing left to discuss." Dad grumbled, his teeth growing sharp.

Andrew readjusted his hat as he watched my dad carefully. "It has nothing to do with Boaz. It concerns another case and I only want your expert opinion on it. I'll fill you in once we're inside."

The four of us crowded around Carl's small kitchen table. I patted myself off with a wad of paper towels, trying to pretend like I wasn't listening while the adults talked. "So what is this about?" asked Carl, calmly.

"Two weeks ago, the body of a jogger was found out by a creek. She looked like a bear had gotten her, all torn to shreds, mauled, but there was also evidence that suggested that there was some sort of sexual assault. My first thought was that she had been attacked by one of your boys, but her body was found 100 miles from here, near the North Carolina border, outside of your usual range." said Andrew.

"You know as well as we do that that's not how we do things. If we were going to use her, we would have taken her. We wouldn't have left her like that for the world to find, either." Carl replied, matter-of-factly. "What makes you so certain that a human didn't attack her and she got mauled by an animal after she was dead?"

"There were bite wounds on her body…both human and canine. There was also some hair and blood found under her nails. That's still being tested, but I'm willing to bet my life savings that it'll come back inconclusive." Andrew smirked.

"You're barking up the wrong tree, sheriff. It wasn't any of us and the nearest other pack is nowhere near here." said Dad protectively. "Stop pestering us and start questioning some of your own people."

"Quiet, Henry." Carl tried his best to calm his larger brother. "Do you have any crime scene photos, Andrew?" He asked.

Andrew nodded as he took some polaroid photos from his breast pocket and laid them in front of my dad and uncle. The poor girl. I swallowed hard as I took in the gory picture. The wolf began to stir slightly in my belly, delighted with the image. That girl, you could hardly tell it _was_ a girl. There was so much blood! "Well," Uncle Carl sighed. "I have to admit it does look like something a Turnskin did, but none of us have gone beyond Pinewood recently. We've stuck close to home."

"I know it wasn't any of you, Carl, but I know it had to be someone _like_ you. _Had to_. And there's more. There's been a rash of similar murders like this one, all across the deep south. Women, little girls, men, it didn't matter. They were all killed, just like the girls you take." Andrew began. He spread out the polaroids, each of them were from a different location with different bodies, both female and male. He leant forward in his seat, eager to prove his hypothesis.

"Now stop right there. Turnskins don't just wander around killing people. We stick to one place, hunt in our own territory and there are men and children in these pictures. I agree with you about the condition of the bodies. It does look like they were attacked by a Turnskin, but everything else sounds too much like what a human would do, Andrew. It's not one of us. It can't be." Carl argued. He was right, the idea that there could be a Turnkskin going on some sort of killing spree, taking out whoever crossed his path was a stretch. We were murderers for sure, but we killed with the purpose of survival. Whoever this was, killed for pleasure and that was generally a human trait.

"Don't deny it just yet, let me finish." Andrew went on, pulling out more and more photos, each more gruesome than the last." It started in Charleston, South Carolina. A four year old girl was snatched off her doorstep. When they found her, there was barely anything left to bury." He jabbed his finger down on the picture of the mutilated child. It was so horrible, even my dad had to turn his head away from it. "It happened again in Jacksonville, two fourteen year old little girls, beaten, raped, and partially eaten. Then in Miami, a whole family was wiped out, each of them mauled beyond recognition. Lastly, a month ago, up near Raleigh, a bunch of kids on a campout were found mauled to death. The boys were eaten in their tents. They didn't even make it out of their sleeping bags. The girls were all found scattered in the woods. Four of them were dead on arrival, however, the fifth managed to live long enough to give the police a description. Thanks to that they were able to do a sketch." He took a piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it and laid it on the table. "Do you recognize this guy?"

The sketch showed a young man, in his either early or mid-twenties. His blond hair was shaggy and fell in his face and nearly to his shoulders. His face was gaunt; his eyes weary, as if he hadn't slept in years. A thin beard covered his upper lip and chin. On his head was an old, faded dark green baseball cap with a jumping big-mouthed bass embroidered on the front and a colorful lure stuck to the bill.

Dad took one look at it and gasped, "Oh, shit!"

Carl leant back in his chair. His hand was over his mouth, his dark brows angled over his yellow eyes in confusion.

I simply sat, staring at it, unable to make a sound. All knowledge of human speech had just flown right out of my head. There was no denying it. That face was too well known to us. The killer _was_ one of us. Still, nothing about the murders made sense. The boy, whose face matched the sketch so perfectly, couldn't hurt a fly. His name was Tobias Roan. We called him Tobi for short. He was my cousin and probably the closest thing I've ever had to a best friend. He lived in Pamplico, South Carolina with the original branch of the Roan family. He was shy, quiet…weak. He was so useless at hunting, his pack only let him feed the Reds and like me, he hated being one of us. We used to go fishing in their pond and talk about running off together, hiding out from our packs, and being free of it all. He was the last person I'd ever suspect of killing all these people, but what really, really made no sense, was how he even escaped my Grandfather's control in the first place.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

* * *

><p>Andrew smirked at our dismayed expressions. "I take it you <em>do<em> know him." He said, overly pleased by our reactions.

Carl slouched in his chair, deflating. "It looks like my nephew, Tobias. That's his hat for sure. It used to be his father's. The boy's worn it every day since he died."

"No! It can't be! There's no goddamn way!" Dad snarled. His bones began to shift beneath the skin of his face, trying to make a muzzle. He slammed a clawed fist on the table. "There's no fucking way the old man would let him do this! He wouldn't even let the boy out of his sight!"

"Henry! Go calm the fuck down!" Carl snarled back. The two elders bared their teeth at each other, making threatening sounds in their throats, until Dad finally backed down. He threw his chair across the room as he stormed out of the cabin.

After Dad slammed the door shut, Carl took a few deep breaths and his wolf features faded away, his human disguise settling back into place. "I'm sorry about him, sheriff. Tobias' father was our eldest brother. He's dead now and if Tobias is really responsible for all this, then…we're about to lose him as well. You can think what you want about us, but make no mistake. We are a very close-knit family. The loss of a family member is just as painful for us as it is for you." Carl explained softly. His hands were folded in front of him and he was looking down at the picture with dulled eyes. I was amazed at how composed he was. There was some sadness in his voice, but otherwise he was speaking as normally as ever. Meanwhile, I felt like I might be sick at any moment. "He was right about one thing, though. It makes very little sense to us that he would be out on his own, hunting. Tobias lives with our pack's patriarch, our father. He's a very strict man who keeps all his children on very short leashes. He only let Henry and I break away because our pack was getting too large. Tobias was never really able to hunt well. He hated it. He didn't even like the smell of blood. Father called him "simple minded". He wouldn't let him do anything but look after the Reds. I can't even imagine Tobias doing any of this."

Andrew gathered up the photos and the sketch and put them back in his pocket. "Well, it looks like he _did_ and, if the last killing is anything to go by, he's headed our direction." He said, wiping sweat away from his forehead. "I'm doing my best to keep you off of the local police's radar, but you can't allow another tragedy to take place here. If even one person is killed while there are people out searching for Iris, there'll be a witch hunt and you'll probably find yourselves having to answer some difficult questions. I know you don't want people poking around up here."

Carl's eyes narrowed in warning, his voice slightly deepening. "Just keep doing your job, sheriff. I don't think I need to remind you what'll happen if you fail us."

There was an agreement between Carl and Andrew Loris. As long as he helped us keep hidden, Andrew's daughter, Annalise, was safe from us. If he failed, Carl would take her from him. He made it clear at every meeting that Annalise would not die quickly nor would they give her the mercy of killing her after her first baby was weaned. They would keep her for the rest of her life and she would mother many Turnskins before he would allow her to die.

Andrew bowed his head. The wide rim of his hat covered his face. "Yes sir. I know. I'll do everything I can, but…what'll happen with Tobias? I need your assurance that you will do something about him."

"We need to discuss it." Carl sighed wearily. "But rest assured, we'll do whatever needs to be done." Carl poked his head outside a moment and called for my brother. "Trevor! I need you to take the sheriff back to his car at Magpie's. Go there and come straight back, you hear?"

The sheriff left us, but the atmosphere didn't settle back into normalcy. If anything, it only grew more intense.

"Your dad's on the porch. He needs to have a chat with you." Carl said to me as he returned from outside. He fell back into his chair. He tilted his head back to look up at the ceiling and rubbed at his eyes irritably. "I can't believe this is happening again." He whispered quietly to himself.

Shoving my hands into my pockets, I shuffled my way out to the porch. It was already painful to swallow. I was trying so hard not to cry. I knew what all of this meant. I knew exactly what my dad was going to tell me, what had to be done. I just wasn't looking forward to hearing it. Once it was said aloud, it was set in stone. "You wanted to speak to me?" I asked as I stepped out onto the damp wood of the porch. The rain was coming down slanted. The roof of the porch did barely anything to keep us out of the elements.

Dad was standing by the porch railings, staring out at the rain as it saturated the ground, turning it all into thick mud. "Have I ever told you what happened to Tobi's dad?" He asked without turning towards me.

"No. None of you talk about him much." I replied. I had only ever heard him mentioned during our rare visits to my Grandfather's farm and we hadn't been out there in years, not since Wyatt was a baby. Tobi and his elder brother, Joshua, sometimes mentioned him, but Grandfather and my uncles avoided the topic like the plague.

"Ezekiel was a great hunter." Dad began with a proud smile. "He was better at it than anyone, but in the end…he still made a mistake. It was such a stupid one, too. The idiot. Joshua was only five at the time. Tobi was barely three. They needed him and he goes out and gets himself killed." He added bitterly.

"What happened?" I asked, shivering in the cold, rainy night.

"There was a tobacco farm nearby. The farmer had seven children. Three of them were girls, two of which were of age. There was one in particular that Ezekiel wanted. Your grandfather gave him the okay to take her, but he wanted him to take Carl and me with him to look out for the girl's father and brothers. Ezekiel, however, didn't want to wait. He went to the farm by himself while the girl was home alone and talked his way in. He charmed her easily. It was all going so well, but after he changed and had chased her outside, he decided he didn't need to chase her all the way into the tree line, which was what we were trained to do. He corralled her into the tobacco field, got her on the ground, but before he could get his teeth on her, one of her brothers showed up and shot him."

"Human's killed him? How'd you keep them from realizing what he was?"

"Ezekiel didn't die there in that field, though I know he wished he had. He had lost an eye and was bleeding badly, but he managed to get back to the compound. Your grandfather…was not happy to see him alive. He had disobeyed his alpha, and so could no longer be one of us. In an instant, because of this one stupid mistake, he went from possibly being our future leader to an outsider. And Father made sure he was treated like one. He sent Ezekiel away and ordered us to hunt him down."

"Grandfather made you hunt your own brother?" I asked, horror turning my blood to ice in my veins.

"Yes and we did it without complaint. Carl was the first to catch up to him, but Ezekiel was much larger than him and even though he was critically wounded and half blind, he was still too strong. Being the closest to his size, it fell to me to put him down." Dad bowed his head and his grip on the railing tightened. His nails dug into the wood. "I tore my favorite brother, my hero, apart because my Father told me to. I started to really hate him after that. I didn't understand it back then, why he would turn on his own son so quickly, but…I get it now. He was protecting us. Ezekiel had disobeyed the alpha and had almost gotten himself caught. That one little mistake made him more of a liability than an asset. We can't afford to keep people around that might jeopardize the survival of the pack." Dad turned towards me. There was a coldness in his eyes that startled me. I instantly felt panicked, like I was in danger of being hunted myself. "Were you really hunting tonight, son?" He asked, rain water dripping from his brown hair.

"What do you think?" I asked, trying not to meet his eyes.

"I think you were _running_." He replied, spitting the word like a curse. "You hate me don't you? You think Carl and I are trying to make you into monsters. You think that you don't really have to live this way?" Dad shoved me in the shoulder, sending me staggering back until I hit the cabin door. He snarled at me. "You want to run? Fine! Run! You'll just end up like Tobi; another liability for us to get rid of!"

"I'm sorry, Dad." I squeaked as I cowered against the door, half expecting him to tear me apart then and there. I felt helpless and trapped. I couldn't, wouldn't ever attack my dad. I loved him, despite everything and yet he was talking to me like he was very willing and able to kill me.

Breathing heavily in anger, Dad took a step back from me, giving me some breathing room. He was changing. His human skin was peeling away from him. It had already disappeared from his head. My dad's wolf face was baring his teeth at me in warning from atop human shoulders. "Son, everything I do, I do for your sake. Believe it or not, I love you. I never want Carl to have to give me the order to hunt you. I want you to live a good long life here with your brothers and have sons and grandsons. I want you to build up future packs and strengthen our race, but you have to grow up. You see now that running isn't an option. Tobi's tried it and you've seen where it's gotten him. This is your life. It will always be your life. Now suck it up and deal with it." He jabbed a clawed finger at me. "If I ever catch you running away again, I'll beat the shit out of you, you hear me?"

"I hear you." I muttered sheepishly. My voice trembled along with the rest of my body. I expected a blow at any moment.

"I'd rather you hate me than lose you, Eli." He barked. I watched him as he stormed away. He shed the rest of his skin. The disguise vanished completely, leaving behind a large brown wolf. He still looked ticked off, even in his completely canine form. The hair between his shoulder blades was bristled, as if he were ready to fight. He leapt clear over the chain link fence and ran off into the woods, eager to kill something to blow off some steam.

"You really pissed him off, huh?" Carl's voice rumbled slightly in his chest. I think he was trying to laugh, but it was hard to tell. He slipped down next to me as I huddled on the porch, staring at the fence where my dad had jumped over it. "So…is it true? Were you going to run away?" He asked. So… he'd been listening on the other side of the door. You would think that he would be even angrier than my dad, since it was he who I would be defying by running. But I didn't see anger in his features and there was no anger in his voice, only a little disappointment.

"I wanted to." I admitted, unable to meet his gaze. I pulled my knees up against my chest, trying to keep from screaming as my chest tightened with grief and anger. "I've been thinking about it a long time. Tobi and I used to talk about running away together when we were kids, but…I guess he forgot to take me along." My eyes turned towards him. I couldn't raise them any further than his mouth. I was surprised to see the corners of his lips were turned upwards in a small smile. "Aren't you mad at me too?" I asked, my insides cringing.

"No." He said, shaking his head. I was genuinely shocked. "I always had a feeling that the thought would cross your mind, that you'd be tempted to leave us. However, I also always knew that you would never go through with it."

"How did you know that?" I asked.

"A lot of us struggle with our fathers' expectations. You aren't the first. Your father and I were no different growing up. Henry absolutely despised Father after Ezekiel died. He sometimes talked about smothering him in his sleep or turning the rest of our brothers against him, but of course none of that ever happened. It was just talk, words from an angry, grieving boy. Henry didn't really hate Father, although he thought that he did. He still loved him, still wanted to make him proud. You are the very same way."

"So you think I don't really want to escape all this? I'm just all talk." I scoffed.

"You're still angry over your mother's death. You think that your father was wrong for killing her, even though you know it was necessary. You're holding your pain against him, against all of us, and it's causing you to rebel. You already know that everything we do is _necessary_ for our survival, but you'll fight against it, refuse to acknowledge that fact for years to come. But in the end, I know you won't run away or turn against us, because secretly, deep down, you actually like being a Turnskin."

I stared at him, at the knowing smile he was flashing towards me. Sharp teeth filled his head. I couldn't think of words to say, but my emotions showed clearly on my face.

Carl chuckled darkly. "Don't look at me like that. I haven't said a damn thing that you don't already know. You aren't at all like Tobi. He had no killer instinct, but I've seen it in you. You've never balked at the sight of blood; your wolf stirs at the sight of it just like all the rest of us. Perhaps you would have taken off with Tobi if he had come for you, but I suspect that you would have talked him into returning to your Grandfather, or maybe have even started a pack of your own. There you would have started to do the same things as we have done, following in your "evil" father's footsteps. Why? Because you know it's right." His tone turned almost bitter. "No other way of living makes sense." He picked up a piece of straw from the porch and threw it off the porch only to have it blown back in on him by the strong wind.

I started to protest, but the minute my mouth opened, it went dry. My tongue stuck to my teeth, as if I hadn't tasted water in months. So I clamped my lips shut and bowed my head to rest my forehead against my knees. I closed my eyes and in the darkness I saw him there. The wolf. He watched me with his bright grey-green eyes, his mouth stretched into a canine smile. "_You can't tell him he's wrong, can you, boy_?" He sneered, licking his chops.

"Get some rest." Carl ordered as he stood up and dusted off the back of his jeans. "We'll start looking for Tobi in the morning. I suggest you make peace with his death before then." I felt his warm hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Eli. I wish I could spare you from what is about to happen, but it has to be done. There is no other way around it."

Pulling myself out of my reverie of madness, that darkness where the wolf lurked taunting me, I peered up at him, my alpha, with new eyes. He was looking at me with such pity, such sorrow, that I could not deny that he was remorseful for what he would soon ask me to do. His expression made it obvious. He had once been in my shoes.

For the first time in forever, I saw him as just another victim of our cursed bloodline. _Did he fight it too?_ I wondered._ Did he once try to escape this life as I have been_? I was sure he had. That was why he knew that I wouldn't run even if I were given the opportunity. He had already lived my life. As I thought this, Carl ceased being my enemy. He became someone I could actually trust, much more so than my own father or even Trevor. He became someone I'd gladly follow to hell and back, an alpha by merit and not just blood.

That night, sleep seemed impossible. I tossed and turned, restless and hurting. When I wasn't sobbing uncontrollably, I was ripping the stuffing out of my pillows just to ease my frustrations. Curses spewed my lips in a steady stream. Sometime during the night, they turned into animalistic growls. Somehow, sleep finally found me, though I don't know how.

A pale grey and white wolf climbed into my room through the window. Then it stood there by my bedside, staring at me with its ocher eyes. I barely recognized him. His eyes looked like those of a wild wolf. He was looking at me like he didn't even know what I was. There was no recognition of me in those eyes. Once I tore my attention away from them, I realized how sorry a state he was in. His fur was matted, some of it missing, like he had mange. You could count every rib, he was so skinny. Worst of all, he was covered in dried blood. It was spattered across his mouth and throat as if he'd just finished a meal.

"Tobi?" I called to the wolf, hoping that he'd respond. I had hoped to hear his voice, but he didn't say anything. Instead an angry growl erupted out of him. He snarled, showing me his bloody teeth. There was no humanity left in him, only the wolf. Just a wild, hungry animal. He leapt at me and his teeth crunched down on my windpipe.

That was when I woke up to a hail of gunfire.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

* * *

><p>I ran out of the cabin in my pajama pants, falling repeatedly, tripping over my own feet. "Get down!" My dad shouted as I burst through the front door. He grabbed me and forced me down on the ground behind the cover of his truck.<p>

"What's going on?" I asked, my voice strangled by panic. "Is it the cops?"

"It's your crazy ass girlfriend, again!" Dad snarled. His bones began to shift.

"Where are you?" I heard Dinah scream from off in a distance. "Fucking monsters! I'll kill you! I'll kill all of you!" We flinched as another shot gun blast shattered the usual early morning silence. Buck shot riddled the truck full of holes.

_Dinah! Have you lost your mind?_ I thought angrily. I peaked around the truck to see where the others might be. I found Carl huddled behind the Red's Cabin with Wyatt wrapped protectively in his arms. The twins were with him, crouched at either corner. They were both watching the chain link fence intently. I followed their gaze.

I could just make out Dinah standing on the other side of the fence, madly firing a shotgun from her hip, not aiming at anything in particular. Oddly, she swayed back and forth on her feet, as if she were unsteady.

"Come out you cowards!" She screamed, her speech slurring. Something was definitely off with her…and I had a good idea as to what it might be.

"She's drunk." I muttered beneath my breath.

"Good, looks like they're making their move." I heard Dad whisper. My attention shot back to the twins. While Dinah was busy firing away at the truck, they were making a break for the main cabin. They were transforming. Boaz's leg bones were twisted backwards, his nails and teeth sharpened and Trevor's handsome face was twisted into a canine muzzle. Their human skins were flaking off of them behind them as they ran.

My breath caught in my throat. I knew what they were planning. Inside the main cabin, under an old chest was a door to a secret massage that led out to the woods, outside the fence. It was our escape route, should we be found out, but now it would serve as a weapon. If the twins could get out to the woods, they could sneak up on Dinah, no problem. She'd be dead before she ever realized what hit her.

I could see it now, quite clearly in my mind's eye, her body broken and mutilated; her blood turning Boaz and Trevor's pale coats as bright and as brilliant a red as the jacket that always hung from her shoulders. The thought of it set the scar that ran down my spine on fire. The skin peeled away as easily as if I were removing a piece of clothing, revealing the matted, brown fur that lay just beneath the surface of my human flesh.

I was running on all fours in what felt like an instant. The pain of the transfiguration of my bones barely registered. The only thought on my mind was the image of the corpse she would soon become if I wasn't fast enough.

I ran in a zigzag pattern in an attempt to dodge the oncoming besiege of buckshot. I could hear the pellets whizzing past my ears, close enough to shier through my fur. As I came to the fence, she came clearly into view. Her eyes widened. She shakily raised her shot gun and pointed it squarely at my head. Her finger came to rest on its trigger. Just as she began to squeeze, I leapt over the fence, barely clearing the barbed wire. My front feet, hit her on the shoulders, knocking her to the ground. As she fell, she pulled the trigger, sending a hail of buckshot into the woods. I grabbed the gun with my teeth and flung it away from her. It went skidding into the heavy brush of the forest and disappeared.

"Dinah, what the hell do you think you're doing?" I barked, pressing down harder against her shoulders to keep her down. "Do you _want_ to get yourself killed?" She was squirming beneath me, trying to worm her way out. Her hands grabbed at my fur and pulled at it until it hurt.

"Get off me!" She yelled. The strong stench of alcohol and vomit on her breath bombarded my sensitive nose. Her face was slick with tears and snot, like she'd been sobbing uncontrollably. Her eyes were bloodshot and her hair was knotted. I'd never seen her look so disgusting, or so pathetic. Her red eyes glared up at me as she bore her own teeth. "Where's Iris, Eli? You damned prick." She spat at me. Foul smelling spit splattered against my muzzle. "Fucking monsters. You're all fucking monsters. I'm gonna kill ya. Every last one. And your fuckin pet too."

"Good. You got her."

"Tear her damn throat out."

I turned my head at the sound of the twins' voices. They stood not 12 feet from me, creeping side by side. The bright early morning sunlight glinted in their eyes. They parted as they drew nearer. One circled around the left, closer to the fence, while the other circled down my right side, along the tree line.

Even in their natural state, when they seemed like mirror images of the same grey wolf, I could tell them apart almost instantly. Even if I wasn't certain, as soon as they opened their mouths, it was made abundantly clear.

"Kill the red riding bitch" Boaz coaxed, licking his chops hungrily as he padded slowly by. His tail brushed the cold metal of the fence, making it sing.

Trevor's ears swiveled back to lay flat against his head. "No, let's just let her go this time." He whined nervously.

"What?" Boaz snarled, his lips peeling away from his sharp teeth. "She just turned the compound into Swiss cheese and you want to just let her go?" He stopped beside me. His ears were held up in full alert, his head lowered in a threatening posture. His teeth snapped as he spoke. "Kill her, Eli! If you won't, I'll do it for you!"

Trevor's tail went between his shaking legs, "But Boaz, Carl said..."

"I know what he fucking said!" Boaz snapped at his twin, barely missing his leg. Trevor wheeled away, dodging behind me, as if I could protect him. "I don't care what he said, the old man is wrong! If we let her go, this will just happen again. You know that don't you, Eli?" He was staring at me, waiting for a reply. Now that Trevor was not on his side, he was looking for my support.

I looked down at the girl beneath my paws. She turned her face away from me, exposing her throat. Her eyes watched me from their corners, never faltering from my own. Silently, she was challenging me. _Who are you going to side with, Eli? Go ahead; show me what you truly are._

"Eli? What's it gonna be?" Boaz hissed, his silvery eyes, watching my every move expectantly.

"Eli, you can't. Despite what he thinks, Boaz isn't alpha yet."

"Traitor!" Boaz lunged for Trevor again, but before his teeth could catch him, my own teeth sank down into the scruff of his neck.

Boaz yelped as I threw him down. He had not been expecting me to do that. Neither was I. "Enough!" I yelled. We snarled at each other with bared teeth and prickled hackles between our shoulder blades.

Boaz's spine arched threateningly. "So this is how it's gonna be?" He snapped. "You're both gonna follow Carl to the grave?"

"You're not the alpha, Boaz! Hell, you're not even the delta! You're an omega, just like the rest of us, and I don't take my orders from you!" I growled.

"This pack is going to die out, thanks to Carl's stupid bleeding heart. Dad's too much of a coward to say anything. I'm the only sane one in this damned pack, looks like. We let her go, we're dead. You understand? Trevor, you know I'm right."

"You are." Trevor agreed sheepishly. "You're totally right, but we can't risk making Carl any angrier with us."

"We already have to hunt one lone wolf; I don't want to add you to it, Boaz." I said.

Boaz's eyes shifted back and forth between us. His ears and tail lowered in dejection. Slowly, Boaz's hackles slicked back down against his back and his lips covered his teeth. "Do whatever you want, but don't say I didn't warn you." He huffed. He turned and ran away without as much as a second glance at Trevor.

"He's not going to forgive you for that any time soon." I whispered Trevor, my eyes intently watching Boaz's retreating form.

"I know," Trevor replied, easing out from behind me. His ears pricked back up and his tail rose high. "But I'd rather deal with him being angry with me for a while, than have the whole pack after me. I love him, but I don't want to die just for the sake of his ambitions."

"Are you done chatting, girls, cuz if you ain't gonna kill me, I'd really like to get up now." Dinah grumbled.

"Oh, so what are you going to do with her?" asked Trevor. His tongue lulled lazily out of his mouth. When he wasn't around Boaz, he seemed like an entirely different person.

"I'll take her home. She's in no condition to drive. You go ahead back and tell Carl we need to up our fortifications so this crap won't happen again. I'll be back shortly."

"Right." Trevor started to canter off, but stopped mid-step. His scruffy head tilted questioningly, "You are coming back, aren't you, Eli?"

"Why wouldn't I?" My eyes shifted away from him, self-consciously.

"I could ask the same thing about why you'd come back." He said with a small, breathy chuckle. "I know you tried to take off again yesterday. Dad told me. Don't do that, kay? "Don't leave me. Promise me." His ears drooped slightly with concern.

"I…can't."


End file.
